Light of a Thousand Suns
by Laryna6
Summary: DeSu2 NGplus The Hotsuin Clan were bound to the defense of Japan and humanity by the very change that made it possible for them to use the power of the Dragon Stream to defend them. The Protector of Yamato knows exactly what he is, even if he wishes he didn't, but what makes the Shining One so special? Hiro/Yamato, Hiro/Various
1. Chains

Yamato scowled at the hand mirror he kept secreted in his desk for these occasions.

It didn't help. In fact, it made it worse, or at least more noticeable. When how able those around him were to notice a certain something was the entire problem?

If he was still only dealing with his subordinates, he could have waited a day or two more. Fumi was observant, but she wasn't the sort to pay attention to minor details of personal appearance, while Makoto was the sort to think she was hallucinating or some rot like that.

Hiro, though? And it wasn't as though there could possibly be a worse time for… certain things to come to light. Not when word could reach the factions opposed to JPs, that 'Clicky' person or whatever his name was.

Yamato had come too far and his ancestors had given too much for him to fail now, and to fail because of what _that_… Because of what was done to his clan?

There was nothing for it, he thought as he took the file that accompanied the mirror out of his desk. Set with industrial diamonds, it was meant for sharpening steel, but it could be used to remove an edge as easily as to make one.

Shuddering at the memory of the feeling, in anticipation of the _sound_ it made, Yamato steeled himself and raised the file to his mouth.

Drew it over the tip of the first of his fangs.

The first few passes wouldn't hurt, it was just the _sound, _conducted through the bone straight into his brain. But soon enough, the file was scraping against exposed root as well as enamel.

Yamato remembered fighting his mother, when she used to do this for him. How she'd apologized, almost in tears, telling him (and herself) that it really was necessary, that the civilian world wouldn't accept those who were different. The Hotsuin were _useful,_ but was that part of why their lives were treated so lightly? Why this country was so willing to sacrifice them?

Normally it only had to be done every few months, but one of his subordinates, meaning to be helpful, had cast a healing spell on him.

The _nerve _of that…

But in a world that cared only about strength and ability, no one would care.

(Hiro wouldn't care.)

All his work would be undone in a handful of hours, he knew, when he performed the ritual to summon the Dragon Stream. He wanted to wait, to try to stay away from the civilians until then, but he reminded himself again that he couldn't take that risk. Not now. Hiro might want to visit him, and what if he saw? What if he realized?

Painkillers were obviously out of the question, not when he had a ritual to perform in a handful of hours. He couldn't afford to have anything clouding his mind when he unleashed the power that man gave the Hotsuin clan. Anything _else_ clouding his mind.

Yamato Hotsuin did what was necessary, no matter how hard it was. That was why he was strong. That was what made him different from the men who knew they were sending his clan to die and did _nothing…_

Familiar rage and old pain mingled with the pain he felt now, the agony simply more fuel for the fire.

* * *

The ritual worked, Io was still alive and while Mizar was still alive, clinging to the top of that building for dear life, all they needed to do was get up there and pry its fingers loose. As much as Hiro hated that he was now doing this for the _eleventh time_, it helped to know what he was up against.

It helped, when he screwed up the ninth time and Io died (because he thought 'of course she's going to be fine,' because he hadn't realized that of course their bonds were _the only things keeping any of them alive_), that it had happened before. That all he had to do was survive until the end of this, and then wait for Polaris to go back on their bargain, destroy the new world.

He could almost thank the damn thing: so far this time no one… Well, no one in his fate viewer had died, at least. His parents were still dead, but he knew they _could _be brought back.

The first time this repeated, when no one remembered, and he had to realize that they were dead again, had to watch Io cry after her mom died _again_… He'd sided with Ronaldo the second time just to see what would happen, since he wouldn't let that be the end, not after Joe died because for some reason he wasn't where and when he'd been last time.

Then the food ran out, everyone simultaneously starving to death, and it was a relief to wake up in his own bed, to eat a big breakfast even with the exam to get to and find himself perfectly willing to proceed with the plan instead of trying to save everyone by running around screaming about the earthquake and getting locked up like a crazy person.

He hadn't realized how much of a _good _thing selfishness was until he'd spent several weeks facing the inevitability of everyone's deaths, unable to save _anyone_ if saving _everyone _wasn't possible.

Hiro was divided between killing Polaris (if they could keep the damn thing from escaping) and trying to bring everyone back to life again. If only there was some way to make sure that it would _stick _this time. But the longer he managed to keep everyone alive, the more he wanted them to _stay _alive. If they didn't kill Polaris, there was no guarantee that this time, Yamato's seal would keep the attempt to wipe the failure from history from sticking. That was why everything kept looping backwards to the time the seals went to full power: at that moment in time and space, all of them were protected from Polaris' power. Time and space were the same thing to the septentriones, or time wasn't anything special. So, to protect the _space _of these cities, the Dragon Stream also had to protect the _time _they existed in, keep it from being erased.

He hadn't liked taking the risk of going along with Yamato's Meritocracy last time. Polaris had seemed too pleased by the idea of it, far more pleased than with Ronaldo's ideals, and _Polaris was the strongest_. When it could do this to all of them?

Hiro had stood there, in that instant realizing why the Anguished One was so dead set against this (but not enough to prefer to see humanity dead, even when he'd been willing to die himself, a being inflicted with this fate). Had they just told Polaris how to take away their free will? Would he end up like the septentriones, unable to really turn against Polaris? Even _Alcor _had to show up to defend Polaris, bar the door to him, do what he was created for, over and over again. And he was the rebel, the cast-out one.

It was such a relief when Polaris destroyed that world, too. Even though Hiro wished he'd had more time: after he'd defeated Yamato, Yamato was finally willing to tell Hiro what he knew of how it all worked but Hiro _knew _there were still things he was holding back. He hadn't wanted to tell Hiro about Alcor, about the Hotsuin, and Hiro had to fight him, had to prove he was the strongest and deserved that information on every little point, dragging everything he could out of him over that handful of days…

Yamato.

That was what was bugging him, he realized, Io's arms around him and clinging to the ears of his hood.

Yamato was supposed to have called them by now. That was why Io hadn't hugged him in the other timelines when she survived: they were distracted by the call, and the need to prepare to finish off Mizar.

His phone wasn't ringing, but even though Alcor had sent him the fate viewer clip of Otome that time, he hadn't sent Hiro one of Yamato. When Yamato's death should have been certain, in the timeline where Hiro didn't get the clip, didn't go save Otome, and Yamato was stranded when Alioth came down. So the 'death clip' must have been there, in the Akashic Record, but Alcor hadn't sent it. Just Otome's.

So Yamato could be about to die, this winning streak could be about to be over, he could be about to lose a friend (because Yamato was a friend, he had kept them all alive and cast mazandyne to hurl them away from the tower even as it collapsed on him) and he _wouldn't know _until it was too late.

Yamato was fine every other time...

…Hiro _had _done something different this time, he realized. He'd gone to see the magic circle with Ronaldo, but he'd explained about the ritual so Ronaldo didn't think the circle was for anything evil. Which meant that Ronaldo might have figured out that Yamato would be there, alone, right now, and that after the ritual was cast they wouldn't need Yamato anymore. Hiro might have managed to convince Ronaldo to leave Yamato alone for awhile, but that time would run out. If Yamato was tired after the ritual, that would be the perfect time to kill him.

The dragon stream was still there, right? Hiro pushed Io away so he could turn around and see that for himself, ignoring the others as they asked what was wrong. "Take care of Io, and Mizar!" he told them, because he didn't want her to exhaust herself following him, and he didn't want Makoto to come with him in case Ronaldo really was there. Not when Ronaldo really would kill her.

He had, one time, when Hiro had looked at the death clip and thought, 'Oh, he's not really going to do it.' He'd already worked on Ronaldo's issues that time, and he _knew _the guy, after siding with him. Ronaldo was far from a bad guy.

But he really would kill her, if she got between him and Yamato, and Hiro had been too busy to track down Airi's father in that timeline. Or this one, either.

Was it really true that he could only save so many people? That saving Joe and Io meant not saving Airi's father?

He wasn't dead yet, Hiro told himself. Probably. People could die in other ways, and the man was never on his fate viewer, especially this time when Hiro had only spoken to him once.

So… No, he couldn't give up. Not yet. Not even after a hundred times.

Yeah, Hiro thought, losing the token pursuit easily and ducking behind a wall to start hitting buttons on his cell phone, he really had to side with Yamato again next. Fumi really was a genius, and being able to tell her to work on whatever he wanted her to work on?

Like, for example, an app that would let him access those teleporters no matter where he was. He was just lucky the magic circle was important enough to have a receiver close by, otherwise he would have had to try to figure out what was the closest he could get and run the rest of the way.

He frowned when he heard shouting, but at least if Ronaldo was shouting at Yamato, Yamato wasn't dead yet?

What had to be Yamato's voice proved it, but the sound… It was hard to Hiro to make out words over the pounding of his footsteps on the stairs, but when he finally paused long enough to grab the door handle, he heard, "Don't _look at me!_"

Yamato was _wailing_? Yes, there was still anger there, not pure distress, but Yamato?

"You monster!" And there was triumph in Ronaldo's voice as he said that. "I'll kill you and put an end to your evil ways!"

Not that likely, Hiro saw as he opened the door, when Ronaldo had gotten himself caught somehow, chained up in midair.

Ronaldo grinned when he saw him, and there was that triumph again. "Hiro!"

"Hi-Don't look at me!" And yes, Yamato was wailing, not turning around to see Hiro but wrapping his arms around himself, like he was trying to hide, and why was he chained down too? Was it part of the… Whoa!

Hiro managed to dodge the chains that he could see as they chimed towards him, but the ones that just appeared, starting with a link or a half-link in empty air? Dozens of them swarmed him, sections of them vanishing and reappearing, and when they had him trussed up tight Hiro felt _himself _vanish, dragged through somewhere _else _towards Yamato.

He should have felt more nervous, maybe, but it didn't feel like an attack, it felt like someone grabbing him desperately, like Io or Daichi when they were panicked and wanted to make sure that he was still alive, that _they _were still alive. Yamato was the nervous one, cowering at where Hiro's feet were now. "No, why are they bringing him _here_, I don't want him to see… Don't look at me!" Yamato ordered, voice breaking, making him sound like an even younger teen trying and failing to pretend he was all grown up, that he was strong and didn't need anyone.

"It's too late: he can see now, see that you really are a monster! I should have known: you were a demon, all along! You and the Hotsuin clan!"

Yamato let out a bitter laugh. "Demons?" You fool. "I'll _crush _you…" The chains around Ronaldo tightened, and the man let out a grunt, but he remained uncrushed, Hiro could see out of the corner of his eyes. "Why can't I… Why won't they kill you! I can still control the Dragon Stream… This has to be _his _doing somehow!" Yamato finally raised his head to snarl at Ronaldo, which was much more like him.

"What?" Hiro asked. "Why don't you want me to look at you?"

Yamato froze.

"Is it the fangs? _Airi _has fangs." So did plenty of other people. Hiro had found himself wondering why he never noticed anything like this before, if it had something to do with people who used the summon app getting turned into demons, until he got concerned enough to ask one of the Ticos, he forgot which one. Apparently it took sight to see the death clips, or something, but most people who had that sight never actually used it. The fangs had always been there, he'd just never seen them before.

…Except he'd actually seen Yamato's mouth close up quite a lot, looking him in the eye and trying to tell if he was lying and how. Hiro was pretty sure he would have noticed fangs, during that almost-week of interrogation. He thought he'd seen flashes of them some other times, but…

Theoretically, he'd be bothered by how ruthless he'd been to Yamato, except that Yamato hadn't really minded it. Not at the time, and Hiro wasn't sure how much of that was Polaris' doing and how much was Yamato.

The way he looked to the side now: in the world of merit, that would have meant that Yamato didn't want to say it, but by making it so obvious that there _was _something to be said? If he really didn't want Hiro to force it out of him, he would have made a better attempt to hide it.

The way they were positioned right now, it was like Yamato was kneeling at his feet in chains, and didn't _that _bring back memories.

Hiro would have felt weird about chaining Yamato up if he'd been in his right mind at the time: he'd felt _really _weird about it when he woke up in his own bed, in his own home, the morning the world returned to the way it had been, but at the time it had just been a way to keep Yamato aware of who was stronger, a way to save time. For him, at least. For Yamato, when all of them were programmed to submit to the strong?

When letting Yamato suck him off, kneeling at Hiro's feet in chains, had seemed like a favor to_ Yamato_? Something to prove to him that he hadn't displeased Hiro too badly, despite how difficult he was being?

So… yeah, Hiro would have noticed if Yamato had fangs, he thought, blushing.

Yamato was almost shivering at his feet, but the chains were sliding down his pants legs in what felt almost like a caress, the way Yamato had petted his hair and body, sitting in his throne before Hiro took control, the links oddly flat except for a twist… Were the chain links _mobius strips_?

And they were the exact color of Yamato's hair, too. That sheen wasn't metal, now that he looked at it more closely.

Mobius strips: strange geometries. The heat of these chains, exactly like Yamato's skin. The way Yamato was so awkward, understood next to nothing about people: Hiro had thought it was just because of his training, but seeing him like this, like when the final septentrione was forced to reveal himself for what he was, he reminded Hiro so much of, "Alcor."

Yamato jerked back, staring up at him with wide gray eyes. How did he know that name? Why had he said it here, now? Was he calling the fallen servant of Polaris to save him?

The chains tightened around Hiro protectively, possessively, and that was when Hiro was sure, "They're a part of you, aren't they? You're descended from Alcor?" he asked that question a little doubtfully, because even if the Ticos showed that Alcor was capable of having children of some kind, anyway, the idea of Alcor doing anything as human as having sex… Well, was kind of hilarious now that Hiro thought about it. Reminded him of Yamato and takoyaki, only Alcor would probably be more willing to try new, human things.

"Descended from that, that…" Yamato looked murderous, and Hiro would have been certain that he was murderous if he wasn't Hiro, and he didn't know Yamato. If he hadn't already made sure to grow close enough to Yamato that Yamato wouldn't want to lose him. Would blame any bad behavior on other people and try to murder them instead, which wasn't necessarily an improvement… "He's the one that did this to us! That bound my clan to the fate of protecting Japan, to dying for the sake of this country and its people! He made us like this!"

"Made you like him," Hiro realized, just like he'd realized several times ago why Yamato forgave Alcor as Alcor died barring the way to Polaris, even though Alcor didn't _want _to stop him.

"Supposedly," Yamato said, a bitter twist to his lips, "It couldn't be helped. In order for us to be able to connect to the energies of the dragon stream, he had to change us, to give us those capabilities. And the only models he had for managing energies like this, for this sort of administrator position, were himself and his kind. He did this to us, made us _monsters," _Ronaldo's word, "so that we would fight and die for humanity, for a country that cares nothing for the lives of _monsters! _These chains: he claims to value human free will, and yet he placed them on my entire clan! And now I'm the only one left, generations of Hotsuins have thrown their lives away for a country that refuses to change, even revolution only places different corrupt rulers in power!" He met Hiro's eyes now, his own narrow, fear of rejection overpowered by hatred of Alcor for now. "But how do you know _his _name? He's never told it to you." Never revealed his true nature. "Unless you've met with him in secret?"

Hiro wasn't surprised that Yamato had been monitoring their encounters with his enemy, or at least having Makoto report on them.

He was saved from trying to come up with something that would deflect Yamato's suspicion from Hiro and his wrath from Alcor (who was already going to suffer more than enough, enough that Yamato would be satisfied), when he noticed that Yamato's eyes were becoming unfocused, almost glazing over as he looked up at Hiro.

"What?" he asked, blue eyes blinking innocently at the other teenager.

"You do shine." So that was why Alcor called him Shining One. "I can't see it, but I can feel it. _Those _parts of me can feel it," Yamato said with distant disgust mingled with… was it longing? "Is that why he courts you, tempting you with knowledge and power like my clan? You _shine_, like a star, like the master and kin who cast him out because he pled for our sake." Supposedly. Yamato's tone tried to be mocking, but he was clearly distracted, sightless eyes not leaving Hiro's face even though somehow Hiro knew that Yamato was too far gone to pay attention to what they saw, not when he was trying to pay heed to other senses. Alien senses. "Is the Anguished One looking for a replacement for Polaris? Does he want you to take him in, let him kneel at your feet?" The chains around Hiro tightened for a moment, before resuming that drift along his clothing, reminding him of their presence, staking that claim and trying to make it a pleasant one. Now, now Yamato was snarling again, though.

Yamato pushed himself up, higher but still on his knees, to lean against Hiro, face against Hiro's abs, and Hiro realized that it wasn't quite Yamato's doing when he felt Yamato try to pull back. The chains around the teenager's shoulders chimed, but refused to budge. Instead, they pushed him harder against Hiro, and Hiro tried to think of icebergs, Mizar, anything but the memory of Yamato's mouth. OF that coaxing enthusiasm, that eagerness to please. Because if he reacted now, there was no way Yamato wouldn't feel it.

"I can't control them," Yamato said, somewhere between anger, embarrassment and wanting Hiro to know that Yamato wasn't taking these liberties of his own free will. "They wouldn't let me get up to put my seal back on, and then that idiot came barging in here." Clearly Yamato had been able to grab him, but not finish him off, not even in order to keep him from bearing tales to Hiro.

"What happened to your cell phone?" He'd been calling them while they guarded Io, and it didn't look like Ronaldo had gotten close enough to Yamato to take it away from him.

"I dropped it," Yamato said shortly, grateful that one of these parts of him had cast a mute spell on Ronaldo (finally!), so Ronaldo couldn't chime in with, 'he screamed like a little girl and flung it into the air when he realized someone had seen him like this.'

"But they started acting differently _before_ Ronaldo came in here?" Hiro asked next, because of Ronaldo's arrival wasn't what made the difference from all the other times, then what had?

"I have no trouble controlling the dragon stream," Yamato said, looking as though if he could control these chains properly, if they were acting like the parts of him they were, they'd be lashing, "but when I tried to seal them away again… This has to be _his _doing somehow. To turn you against me, have you for himself!" How dare he! "Or is he the reason you haven't asked whether or not I'm a servant of Polaris in disguise, plotting to betray the human race? Because he already revealed himself to you?" So Hiro believed that not all septentriones were enemies?

Actually, Hiro wasn't considering asking that because he already knew that Yamato _was _plotting to betray the human race, for a certain value of betrayal. Yamato certainly thought the change to a merit system would be an improvement over how humans were now, and it was certainly better than being completely wiped out by Polaris. Unless they could beat Polaris somehow and make it stick, then the only way to survive they had was to placate Polaris, make it happy enough with how humans existed to let them continue to exist in peace.

If Yamato's merit system was enough to do that, then Hiro wouldn't have come back after the last time.

Yamato's eyes narrowed, taking Hiro's silence as proof he'd guessed right. "That trash! He wants you to fight Polaris, doesn't he! Waste all your power and potential on a fool's errand! Polaris is the administrator of worlds, he can't be defeated! Even Alcor admits he can't defeat Polaris, can't even raise a hand against his master! Our only hope of survival is to convince Polaris that if he removes the flaws that are why he wants to destroy us in the first place, we will no longer be an unsightly blot on his creation! Fighting him was clearly what _he_ wanted me to do, the reason he gave my clan this power in the first place, to waste our lives even though he knew we _couldn't _save humanity! See? I had to use the power of the dragon stream, the barriers are down now: all my clan's struggle and suffering, all for this moment, and all the power _he _gave us could do was buy us a handful of days!"

Hiro wondered if Yamato had noticed that when he grabbed Hiro, looking up at him so fiercely, his hands were on Hiro's ass. Probably not, since this was Yamato.

…This was definitely not a good time to remember spanking Yamato, one of the times he was especially difficult. Especially when the chains _were _lashing now, channeling Yamato's rage at the thought of Alcor, of anyone but especially Alcor, taking Hiro from him. So Alcor wasn't the reason they were acting up? Hiro doubted it. Not because this part of Yamato was still hostile to Alcor. No. Alcor had let them use his own summon app to kill him: he wouldn't restrict Yamato's free will, not even the homicidal, or astrocidal impulses.

He doubted it because after finally figuring out how to react to Alcor, what made him happy and therefore willing to keep talking, he knew he just didn't think in those terms, Septentrione or not. Creation of Polaris, who definitely _did _think in those terms, or not.

It made sense, in an ugly way. As insurance. Alcor was the Sword of Polaris, the most powerful creation of the administrator and controller of worlds, and yet Alcor had no real ability to have power over other people. Forget physical attacks, he was incredibly weak to any form of psychological warfare. It said a lot, that he still defended humanity even when Polaris would surely have used that vulnerability against him. Alcor was absolutely miserable and flat-out wanted to die, but he still helped them instead of begging the forgiveness of Polaris and the other septentriones, pleading that he'd do or believe anything if they'd let him back into the hive mind and end what had to feel like eternal lonely torment, for a timeless being.

After seeing so many times how grateful he was for death, how much of a relief it was for him, Hiro had almost taken Alcor off the list of people he was determined to have survive all this. Because was that really fair to him, after all he'd done for them? When an ending was what he wanted, didn't they owe it to him?

Still, though…

…It was a bad idea to be thinking sympathetically about Alcor when Yamato was watching him for thoughts like that, about ready to go flying off the handle. Yamato didn't deal with stress or embarrassment well, or rather he channeled it into anger _really _well, and when he had someone to kill?

Someone who _was going to die for trying to take Hiro away from him_!

Seeing Yamato this pissed off wasn't going to help Ronaldo thinking that he was a monster.

Seeing Alcor get swung upside-down in the air he'd appeared in the middle of, blinking at the sight of the Shining One and Yamato Hotsuin, wasn't going to make Hiro think that he was a monster, though. The septentrione seemed aware of the chains coiling around him, certainly, but not bothered by them. Anything but. "Yamato Hotsuin?" he started to say.

"Why were you hanging around my Hiro, you piece of trash!" the head of JPs demanded furiously, fangs bared.

For some reason the chains let Alcor put his hand to his mouth in that familiar gesture, when Hiro couldn't even get his arms free to put a hand on Yamato's head to try to calm him down. He looked distressed, but not because of Yamato when he said, "The Shining One is not yours, Yamato Hotsuin. The Will of the Species is not yours to dictate, and never will be." If Alcor had anything to say about it.

Not that he did: Hiro knew that very well.

Yamato _shook _him now, and Alcor still looked like he wasn't bothered by the chains, even if they belonged to his enemy. Like being encircled was entirely too familiar, too natural to him for him to possibly see it as a threat.

Mizar, Hiro realized. Mizar had tentacles, and, "Mizar's your companion star, isn't he? He was, I mean. And he's going to die soon." The others would figure out that they needed to head over there and finish him off even without Yamato or Hiro there to point out the obvious. Fumi would know that the dragon stream's power wouldn't last forever, too.

"Yes, Shining One," Alcor confessed, bowing his head. "What he and the others are trying to do to humanity is wrong, and yet… I am sorry I could not bring myself to help you, as I did with Alioth and Megrez."

"That's fine." They'd figured out how to kill it on their own, was what Hiro didn't say.

That didn't win him any sympathy from Yamato. "And so you attached yourself to Hiro's aura, spying on him?" For comfort? "Touch him again, and I'll kill you!"

"But you have already made yourself my enemy, Yamato Hotsuin," Alcor said reasonably. "You seek my destruction, and I seek yours. I will not permit you to meet with Polaris and have him take away humanity's free will. When you hate me for the edits I made to your clan's files, why do you want similar edits made to your entire species? Your Reason will make humanity more like us, bound to obey the strong and yet be thrown away by them as unworthy no matter how much we…" Alcor bit his lip. "I never meant for your clan to suffer my fate, Yamato Hotsuin." And he couldn't bear for the species he had aided to suffer that fate, not because of him, not because of how he had tried to aid it.

"You're weak, and deluded, and you use others because-" Yamato said, both out of hatred of Alcor and in defense of his world of merit.

"I am the strongest of the Septentriones," Alcor said calmly. "My title is the Sword of Polaris: I was created to be the strongest being in existence, save for him."

"How would you feel," Hiro asked, "If I 'cast you aside?' Not because you were weak, or unworthy, or anything you could fix, but because we disagreed? Because I thought your world of merit wasn't a good idea, while you couldn't just abandon your ideals and what you think is right? What if we disagreed so much that even after I kicked your ass, you still couldn't bring yourself to go along with it?" Hiro knew what would happen: would Yamato realize? Would Yamato admit it, that there were problems with his vision of the ideal world? That the paradise he was trying to bring into being wouldn't be any better than this world, and would really just be worse? "There are different kinds of strength, Yamato. Strength in battle, strength of conviction, the power we get from each other: in a merit system, the stupid people would try to just take take take, to use others up to get stronger themselves, and then those others wouldn't have any power left to give them. So everyone would just end up weaker, in the end, because they wouldn't have been watching out for the other people they used to get their strength from.

"Ronaldo doesn't have it right either: if you worry about other people but forget to worry about yourself, then you'll just throw away all the effort they put into helping you, because you won't value it. You can't, if you don't value yourself." Hiro remembered that, remembered watching people try to fight over who got to eat the last of the food, until it got to the point that _everyone _refused to eat. "You're actually a pretty good boss, Yamato: you look after your people and it doesn't really occur to you to be unfair to them, because that would be stupid. I thought you knew, though, that most people are that stupid. I get that you think that in a world of merit, the worthy will rise to the top, but how do you define worthy?" Even over that week, the ones who were able to _hold on to power _were the ones who managed to care enough about their underlings to keep them in top condition. The ones who _gained _power were the ones able to take in those thrown aside and grant them strength, make them grateful. But then, wasn't that strength? Enough strength of will to fight the programming even when it kept them from being aware that there was any reason to do so. Kept them thinking that what they were doing was underhanded and _wrong_. "And Polaris? Really is that stupid. And unfair. _Really _unfair," Hiro added, because making them do this over and over again because the damn thing kept going back on its world was fucking cheating, no matter how happy Hiro was that it gave him chances to save people.

After all, breaking a promise wouldn't matter, you could get away with it, if you could just destroy the file that held that inconvenient little promise. Hiro had no idea why he alone held on to his memories: the one thing he did know was that Polaris had seemed scared of him, the time Hiro and Daichi tried killing the damn thing. It had run away before they could finish it off, and they were stuck on tiny islands with a limited food supply – thank goodness for demons – until the damn thing got its courage up enough to come back and start trying to erase them again.

It said that the only reason they could do it, or contemplate, it, or something like that was because of Hiro, so what was it that put Hiro outside of Polaris' control? Alcor was the one who knew the most about the Shining One thing, but so far Hiro hadn't figured out how to get him to talk about it, if Hiro could even understand the answer, because that meant revealing he was a septentrione, and whenever Alcor did that, he expected to die very shortly and wouldn't stand around talking forever. Although Hiro had gotten better at delaying the reluctant assault.

Anyway, "No matter what you do, people are going to disagree." Even people who had fought beside each other to save what was left of the world for a week. "When it's important enough to them. Polaris' power is the most important thing to him, but he made Alcor to care enough about others at least enough to serve Polaris instead of his own ambition, right?" Yeah, maybe part of Yamato's disdain for Ronaldo was that Ronaldo's ideals of helping others reminded him of Alcor, and how that worked out for Yamato's clan? "Because having servants just like Polaris himself, that would stab him in the back all the time? That would be great. Just what the big bastard deserves." Hiro couldn't help smiling at the thought. "I'm not saying that the old world wasn't messed up, and that what happened to your clan wasn't unfair. Having to fight alone, with no one coming to help you: that could still happen in your world of merit, though." It happened all the time. "They disagreed with the people in power, wanted to change things." No wonder Hiro had thought they might be related to Alcor, really. Although Yamato was more like… Well, the only Septentrione they'd ever managed to actually piss off was Polaris, but Yamato wasn't _that _bad.

"Shining One, how do you know all of this?" Alcor wondered, making that little frown. Humans couldn't access the Akashic Records, he'd managed to get that hammered into his head, but that meant there were only certain ways data could get into their memory files. He turned over and floated closer to the Shining One, and even though Alcor didn't notice both Yamato and Hiro wondered why the chains weren't stopping him, when Yamato had to want to keep Alcor away from his Hiro, right? So even if they were controlled partially by his subconscious or something, they should still be trying to hold the septentrione back.

Pulling him down suddenly when he got too close seemed about right, but then they saw that awkward tangle of thin limbs get straightened out into a kneeling position, almost like Yamato's. Alcor's surprised glance at Yamato made the Hotsuin even angrier – no, the word was jealous. The one he was angry at was himself, for letting Alcor look up at Hiro like that, all vulnerable and wondering if he had a place here.

Yamato didn't even know the _word _moe, Hiro was fairly certain, or else he'd be more worried. Didn't know that weakness could be just as tempting as strength, especially when he was looking at something strong that had been _made _weak, and still had such a strong will under there. It wasn't that Hiro minded fixer-uppers: look at Yamato.

That was when Yamato managed to move despite the chains, far enough to _tackle _Alcor, and Hiro wondered if it was because of the merit system programming (even if it should have never existed now) that his first reaction was to be extremely pleased that two damn strong (and hot) people were fighting over him. It reminded him of when Io had gotten upset enough over Yamato taking up all of Hiro's time and attention to challenge them _both, _making a fairly good attempt at crowning herself God-Empress Io. Well, when you were in a world of merit, and you'd made a sun god your bitch… It was hot, was what it was.

At least in that momentary fantasy Hiro was the referee of this little wrestling match instead of a spectator, actually doing something to keep them from hurting each other too badly. Even when he _wanted _them to win Alcor was not a pushover, and he did want Yamato dead. At some point, the necessity of doing something about those hands around his throat would overcome Alcor's reluctance to harm humans, and then Yamato was going to get so ill-starred being poked a few times would finish him off, Hiro just knew it.

"How dare you try to take my place with Hiro! I'll kill you!" Yamato raved, and Hiro wondered exactly when Yamato's place had become kneeling at Hiro's feet instead of the other way around. Well, he knew exactly when it happened in the merit timeline, but…

Thinking like this wasn't helping him get down there or save Yamato's life. Did Alcor's body null strangle damage or something? Why weren't those hands crushing his throat… Except Yamato's hands weren't quite touching Alcor's throat, were they? There were chains wrapped around it, and Yamato was trying, and failing, to push in the chains.

When Hiro realized this was when Alcor asked, "Why are you protecting me, Yamato Hotsuin?" sounding puzzled and touched and Hiro _really _wished he could facepalm, because wrong thing to say.

"You!" This was _your _fault! "You're the one that did this to me, and now Hiro thinks I'm a monster like you!" Now Alcor was making Yamato's own body betray him!

"Actually…" Hiro started to say, because being like Alcor didn't make someone a monster. It made them like a stray puppy or something. Alcor was one that had been abused by his former owner and needed to be lured carefully with soft words – Hiro still hadn't managed it – while Yamato was half-feral but hungry enough for companionship to pounce desperately on any bone you tossed him once he knew you, a few of them all it took to make him your best friend for life, but still. Maybe not human, or entirely human in Yamato's case, but not _monsters_. "Don't worry, Yamato. I still like you. Actually, this explains a lot." So this was what Yamato had fought against his own merit system, desperate to hide it from Hiro even in the world where it shouldn't have mattered. "Like why you don't understand how normal people work at all." At least he was better at it than Alcor? Although even though Alcor couldn't really understand humans, he still had compassion for them, while Yamato's lack of understanding made it hard for him to figure that out.

Yet, when Hiro sided with him, and they met that dying man trying to bring one last scavenged candy to his daughter… At least Yamato was able to realize that there was _something _there to be understood, something that didn't fit with his theories about how the world worked and how to make it stop sucking. That it wasn't as simple as 'some people suck, so getting rid of them will fix the problem.'

It wasn't that Yamato was a sociopath, it wasn't that he was incapable of understanding people or being nice to them. He was just ignorant, like that puppy or like a little kid, and it was kind of cute.

…Why yes, one of Hiro's childhood ambitions had been to grow up to be a Lion Tamer, why did he find himself thinking of that now? "But I would like it if you and Alcor could kiss and make up." Hiro remembered telling Yamato and Io to do that.

If it weren't for, well, what happened to all the people Hiro or someone else sensible weren't personally in charge of, Hiro would have thought that yeah, the merit system did kind of rock. Good times.

"Shining One?" Hiro hadn't expected Alcor to nod, and lean up and do that literally. Yamato hadn't either, which left him gaping like a fish.

Hiro's inner… Well, he couldn't blame this on the merit system. His inner teenager was disappointed there wasn't any tongue or anything, just a brief press of lips. "Was that right?" Alcor asked, pressing his hand to his mouth again, blushing.

"Stop-Stop wrapping yourself all around him like that!" Yamato ordered, brain apparently deciding _that hadn't happened_. Alcor was still hogging the light.

Alcor frowned. "Are you really unaware that you made room for me, Yamato Hotsuin? And I think that was right… One of the Hotsuin tried to explain kissing to me, but I could never remember when you were supposed to use your teeth and when you weren't…"

Yamato sputtered.

Hiro realized that right, the Hotsuin had to be pretty smart, if Yamato was any example. So Hiro couldn't possibly be the first person to realize that Alcor was really, really molestable. "On the neck, right?" he found himself asking, almost out of morbid curiosity.

"Yes, that was where he used his. Mostly," Alcor corrected himself. "It was very kind of him, to summon me for such small things just to try to make me feel less lonely."

"Shut _up_," Yamato said, blushing furiously at the thought. "And don't try to get Hiro to, to… to try to warm your bed out of pity!" He glared down at the Anguished One. "Is that why you made us like this? So we could do what the others used to, and connect… to… your… _mind_." Yamato said the final words as though becoming enlightened, smiling with triumph more vicious than Ronaldo's.

Alcor cried out with surprise beneath him, and Hiro tried not to think that was hot, really he did. When Alcor threw his head back, neck exposed, and pleaded, "Don't, Yamato Hotsuin," with hopeless desperation mingled with want that made it clear that even though Yamato was still most likely his enemy, he was so very lonely. He did miss this.

"Like stripping the insulation off a wire," Yamato said thoughtfully. "Did Polaris intend to cripple you, or are these scars just what happened when you were torn away? They won't protect you from me! I'll find out everything you know, everything you're scheming to do to Hiro, and I _will _create my ideal world! A world where no one will care about blood or race, a world where Hiro will be mine!"

"Stop it, Yamato!" Hiro said, and knew it was too late not just when round, ribbed lengths of what could almost be steel cable appeared, some of them with chains wrapped around them, others running through the middle of the links of the chains, but when Alcor started to weep.

It wasn't crying: crying meant crying out, making noise. Wanting someone to help.

Alcor wept soundlessly, believing that no one would come to help him. That no one would care, that he was alone, and that kind of despair? Like Io after her mother died, and even the merit system couldn't have kept something from tightening in Hiro's chest at that, everything that made him who he was knowing that he had to _fix this_.

Ronaldo wanted a world where everyone had to feel compassion, Yamato wanted a world ruled by the worthy, but Hiro, Hiro just couldn't tolerate a world where people felt like this. Ever. It was just that he accepted that he'd have to make the world a place where this didn't happen not by changing the world, but by doing it the hard way and fixing people. Making it better for them.

Because he just couldn't stand this. His arms flexed in the chains, wanting to grab the septentrione so he knew that someone was there, and not just because they hated him like Yamato. That someone wanted him there, wanted him to be okay.

Alcor looked like a painting, and Hiro wondered for a moment if he was warped to think this was beautiful, but didn't people think Romeo and Juliet was a beautiful story, despite being a lot of really fucked up, stupid and tragic stuff that shouldn't have happened? But that was life, and truth was beauty, and this was how Alcor really felt. Even as he tried to save humanity, he was hurting so much inside, and caring about what happened to others when he was in this much pain? Wasn't there something noble in that, beautiful in that, even if Yamato couldn't see it?

"Shining… One…" Alcor managed to force out, and Hiro realized it was a warning when Yamato looked up at him, eyes wild.

That just made it worse, didn't it? Hiro wanted to tell Alcor to, 'Worry about yourself,' because when you cared about someone else, then you _needed _that person to be a little selfish, to worry about themselves, because otherwise they could end up in pain like this and then you both just suffered.

"Humans aren't meant to think the way we do. I tried to preserve the Hotsuin clan's humanity, but he remembers… Impossible things," Alcor went on as Yamato stood up, his feet not touching the ground. "Records of things that haven't happened."

Yamato sunk his teeth into the side of Hiro's neck, and suddenly it all made sense. If Yamato was part septentrione, but normally kept that part of himself sealed? And even when it was unsealed, the thoughts of that part of his mind were foreign enough they were practically subconscious, hard for the normal Yamato to understand?

A jumbled sound came from Yamato's lips, against Hiro's marked skin, followed by, "Overlord," and Hiro knew that yeah, this was all his fault.

He didn't think this part of Yamato would really have cared about what happened on the failed resets, and would have wanted to ignore the time Hiro helped Ronaldo win, but when, last time, Yamato finally got what he wanted? When he and Hiro became lovers, and Yamato had a worthy master to serve?

If this was some kind of mind merge or hive mind thing, then being connected to a(nother) septentrione would have let this part of Yamato, the one that seemed to remember, overpower (or outvote) the human consciousness.

And of course this part of Yamato wouldn't have wanted to be suppressed by the part of him that didn't remember, didn't know what the hell was going on. Thought that Polaris would keep its word. Not when this part remembered getting his ideal world, getting everything he'd ever wanted, and then having it snatched away from him. No, this was Yamato, so he'd be stubborn and vicious and get Hiro back.

Hiro was just glad he'd managed to impress on Yamato that there would be no killing people, dammit, or Hiro would be _very upset_, as that was clearly the only reason Ronaldo was still alive and Alcor wasn't damaged. More damaged.

Yeah, this Yamato definitely remembered the world of merit. Remembered how to undo Hiro's pants with his teeth, even.

Hiro tried to think of the audience, of Ronaldo and how everything Yamato experienced right now was probably getting fed right into Alcor's mind, but Yamato was sexy when he was hungry and vicious and _wanted _Hiro.

Wanted Hiro enough to find a way to remember, when everyone else kept forgetting and Hiro couldn't bring himself to tell them the truth. Not when they had enough despair to deal with. To tell them that even if they managed to survive and get a happy ending, it would all be for nothing? Hell no. He'd decided a long time ago to bear that burden alone.

At least Hiro finally managed to get his hands free, clearly because Yamato wanted Hiro to touch him. Well, wouldn't that kill two or three birds with one stone? There was this Yamato, this timeline's Yamato (who was worried that Hiro thought he was a monster) and Alcor (who needed hugs and would hopefully feel them). Also, he should probably try to make it clear to Ronaldo without being tasteless about it that he certainly wasn't being raped, because Ronaldo was a cop and Hiro could only imagine how much he would hate seeing someone raped right in front of him while he was powerless to do anything.

Hiro still managed to get his jacket off and throw it so that it covered Ronaldo's face. "Sorry!" he said, clearly only half-meaning it.

Under the merit system, he would have wanted to show off that he was the strong and worthy one and that meant that he got Yamato, the former overlord, but Yamato was going to be embarrassed enough as it was whenever he recovered enough ability to care about other people's opinions.

Embarrassment wasn't enough to keep Hiro from giving himself a mental high-five when Alcor's occasional noises changed from surprise and uncertainty to enjoyment, and finally an enlightened, "So _that _is how that is supposed to feel."

The thing he said that about… While it raised Hiro's estimate of how many bases that Hotsuin had gotten to with Alcor, at least it proved that the Hotsuin really had been trying to make him feel good, and not just taking advantage of the septentrione's innocence and vulnerability. If anything, it made Hiro feel for the guy, because heaven knew (even if Polaris wouldn't care) how many times Hiro had tried to make Alcor feel better, only to fail. It sucked, to see someone hurting like that and not be able to do anything, but at least Hiro wasn't the only one who had ever tried.

Another really good excuse Hiro had for having sex right now was that Yamato was always easier to deal with during a food coma or the afterglow, when the warm fuzzies were temporarily overpowering his adolescent rage at, well, everything. If Yamato's goal here to be reunited with Hiro, then proving that Hiro still wanted him would show that the mission was accomplished.

Then, if they could work out some more controllable way to help Yamato wake up this part of his mind and get his memories back, then Hiro could grab him one of the first few days and take that seal off, whatever it was. Having Yamato on your side made everything so much easier.

For one thing, it meant you weren't fighting him. Fighting Yamato was a _bitch_. Alcor was easy by comparison, and Alcor was the Sword of Polaris. Hiro doubted that it was only because of how Alcor had helped the Hotsuin Clan at his own expense.

What had Trumpeter said? "Humans have become such dreadful beings," that was it.

That might be the real reason Polaris kept deleting them. Not because they weren't evolving enough, but because they had evolved _too much_. Come too far, grown too strong.

Not only could they kick Polaris' ass, but they'd stolen the loyalty of the most powerful of his servants. If Polaris' arrogance wasn't hiding fear, then he was an even bigger fool than Hiro already knew he was. After all, he was the one who'd picked a fight with humanity by killing billions of people, he was the one who'd refused to listen to Alcor and instead tried to break that will, the will Polaris made in the first place. If he'd had any respect for other people at all, he wouldn't have done such damn stupid things.

…Yeah, maybe Hiro had a responsibility to keep Yamato from growing up to be any more like Polaris.

No, that was unfair to Yamato. At least Yamato was willing to listen. More than that, he was eager to learn.

"Hiro… I missed you so," Yamato said afterwards, sounding almost dreamy, pale fingers in Hiro's hair. "Part of me remembered fighting Polaris with you, creating our new world, but I couldn't… I was powerless, all I could do was watch. I couldn't connect to the mind of my former self until he released that seal."

"I remember," Hiro reassured Yamato, taking one of those hands and entwining their fingers together. "Even that wasn't the first time."

"I'm aware of that, but the other times…" Hiro felt Yamato shrug, lying underneath him. Yamato didn't care about the other times, not compared to when he was Hiro's lover.

"I only went along with your world of merit because I was pretty sure Polaris would betray you too, and I'd be back to square one. I figured that while it lasted, I could get you and Fumi to tell me what you knew and work on some things for me," Hiro confessed, because friends should be honest with each other. "Your world of merit wouldn't have worked out any better than Ronaldo's ideal did."

Yamato made a noncommittal sound, not really caring, but, "Even in that world, I was still too afraid to tell you the truth of what was done to my clan."

"You really meant to create a world where people would be happy," Hiro said, more than half for Ronaldo's benefit, "but it's just not that easy. Paradise is like purposes: it's something we have to create for ourselves. Heaven is the company you keep, not the place you are."

"And you'll fight me if I try to bring about the world of merit instead of restoring the human world." Even though he couldn't see Yamato's eyes right now, with their cheeks pressed together, Hiro could still imagine the thoughtful look in them.

"Yes," Hiro said bluntly. "Because I don't want to end up like Polaris. I don't want to ever get rid of you or hurt you because I feel threatened by you. There are people who think that a benevolent dictator is the best form of government," it wasn't just Yamato, "but being made to think that way made it really hard to be benevolent."

"You don't want to treat me like Alcor," Yamato translated. "Or the way the government and Yatagarasu have treated my clan." One of the Four Great Summoner clans, yes, but corrupted by a foreign god. Even more expendable than the Kuzunoha name-bearers. "Hiro… why are you so perfect? Why do you shine so? Even Alcor doesn't know. Well," Yamato amended that statement, "Now that he knows that these events have become a cycle, he thinks it's because you have become a nexus, the focusing point of humanity's will to survive and the power of friendship," or some rot like that. Yamato didn't think enough of humans to believe that just being _more _human, that being a vessel of the will of a species like humanity, would make Hiro this wonderful.

"It's a secret," Hiro said cheerfully, as he had before, in other conversations. "If I am getting stronger every time, though, that's good news," that was a reason to hope he could end this eventually. And if Alcor would keep getting drawn to him more and more every time, then he could save him too, surely.

He'd wondered before if it really was just that he was getting to know them better, or if it really was easier to grow close to them every time. It was nice to think that they remembered on some level, that their bonds didn't just disappear. If their bonds, if those feelings really did keep building and building, if it was their power that was shining through him? That was a nice thought. And it would explain a lot.

Io, Io _could _have been hiding a crush on him for months before they met up in that train station, but how else could he explain Makoto? It said something about Otome's devotion to others that she wanted to hook him up with either her friend or her daughter instead of taking him for herself even in the world of merit: she really was suited to Ronaldo's world. Or rather, she didn't _need _to be altered to conform to Ronaldo's ideals. If anything, it made her care less about other people's feelings, because she'd no longer been able to care about the fact that her daughter wanted her to live…

He and Daichi were friends, but where had the desperate conviction and strength of will come from, that made Daichi crush that truck into Dubhe even when he should have thought that it wouldn't have worked? It seemed so out of character for him, and yet Hiro could absolutely count on him coming to their rescue.

"I wonder if the others remember too, on some level? Even if they aren't part septentrione, so it's probably harder for their minds to sort data like that." See, Yamato? Hiro didn't think it was a bad thing. "You didn't manage to kill Ronaldo's mentor, by the way. And the two of you do get along pretty well. Actually, I kind of wonder if that's why he gets so angry with you, now that I think about it. You died to save me _and _him once, and most other times he's the one who goes to ask you why you wanted a world of merit, after I kick your ass, and helps to convince you to join me instead of finishing you off."

"When he came in the part of me that remembered realized that he could be useful, help to bring you back to me," Yamato agreed. "He's still a fool." An incredibly annoying one.

"So's Jungo, but Keita and Airi like him anyway," Hiro pointed out. "Think about Jungo. He's really strong: you should see him if you threaten his cat. I mean _really _strong. He's not all that smart, but at least he's smart enough to know his limits. And he helps a lot, even helping other people get stronger. Where is someone like that supposed to fit in your merit system? The old world was pretty messy and messed-up, but at least people could find or make places for themselves where they fit in."

"Like Fumi."

"Right." More or less. "The world has a lot of great stuff that you just don't know about yet. I said I'd teach you, remember?"

"You want to bring the world back the way it was before." Instead of trying to salvage Yamato's idea of a world of merit.

"Of course. Io's parents died, Yamato. So did mine, and Daichi's, and Hinako's entire family… You know how upset you are that your clan died. Multiply that by… _everyone_, and that's how wrong it is, to just give up on saving all those people because _we don't care enough_."

"…I didn't think of it that way."

That, right there? And the way Yamato had said it, as thought he felt _really stupid _for not thinking of something that should have been so obvious? That was proof he wasn't a monster, forget a sociopath. There was a difference between not thinking of something because he didn't know how to look at things that way and not caring about something because it had occurred to him and he'd decided not to care. So Hiro squeezed his hand. "Tug Alcor over here, will you?"

Yamato grumbled.

"You're the one with extra limbs," Hiro pointed out. "I'd have to get up to do it."

Since Yamato didn't want Hiro to get up, Alcor bumped into their side a second later.

"In the world of merit, you were the strongest, so everyone wanted your time and attention," Yamato said sulkily. "And you deserved to have as many of them serve you as you wanted."

"Yeah, until I got Io and Makoto to beat them off with sticks for me, it wasted a lot of time," Hiro agreed. Wait, so Yamato's jealousy was now working _for _Hiro for once? Score!

After all this time, Hiro knew better than to do a lot of things, and one of them was to underestimate the power of Yamato's jealousy.

"You can have Io and Makoto," Yamato said grudgingly, although Hiro knew the real reason was that Yamato knew he could control Makoto, so he wasn't competition, and Yamato had found Io kicking his ass that time damn sexy, "and Alcor."

That surprised Hiro for a moment, but if Yamato could link his mind to Alcor, that meant that all the time and attention Alcor got from Hiro would be time and attention that Yamato got too. So this was less generosity than tactics, Yamato trying to maximize his percent share of Hiro. Still, at least he was willing to do it by sharing now, which was incredible progress. Incredible in the sense of _not credible_, until Hiro remembered that right, Yamato was linked to Alcor right now and Alcor would think in terms of sharing and generosity and so on. So Hiro lowered his raised eyebrows.

"Yamato Hotsuin," Alcor said so very gratefully, and with his cheek pressed against Yamato's, Hiro could feel the smirk.

Alcor was very emotionally vulnerable, and Yamato was a predator. So, he'd gotten inside Alcor's mind, looked for the septentrione's weak points, and was ruthlessly exploiting them. When Alcor missed his companion star, missed the minds connected to his, and now Yamato had taken their place?

Hiro wasn't going to point out that Yamato's victory was going to result in Alcor being much happier and better off, but if they were linked now? Seeing Alcor die (like the Hotsuin) had made Alcor and his pain real to Yamato before. Yamato had forgiven him before once he understood what Alcor had gone through, so it was possible.

So Hiro would just let Yamato tell himself that he was winning and let him be smug for now. He could pet him on the head and tell him how nice he was being to poor Alcor and how happy Hiro was that they were playing nice together later.

Wetness against his shoulder: was Alcor still shedding tears? Where was he getting all that water from? Right, not human. Hiro could feel the slight tremble in those unpadded limbs as he clung to them both.

Where Yamato saw weakness, Hiro saw the strength it took to endure this, to _choose _to endure this for the sake of other people instead of just going along with Polaris, but as long as Yamato only saw weakness he wouldn't see threat, so this was fine for now.

"You don't want anyone else, do you?" Yamato asked.

"Not really." Too much work. Not that he was reluctant to put in work for the sake of relationships, but one of the things he'd learned from this was to take relationships seriously, and he didn't know if he could look after any more people and their issues and needs well enough, even with Io's help. Well, there was Daichi, but Hiro couldn't tell if Daichi had been attracted to him in the world of merit because he was actually into Hiro or because of how the merit programming had screwed with their friendship. With the entire concept of friendship. A give and take relationship between equals just couldn't work that way in the world of merit, but at least it hadn't destroyed their bond, just warped it into something else. Hiro still grimaced at the memory. "And Makoto's really more into Ronaldo, once they get to know each other."

Yamato made a note of his employee's (fortunately) poor taste. Yes, it was a good thing he'd let he buffoon live, since he could be used to distract Makoto from Hiro.

By, for instance, throwing him at her when she finally arrived and ordering her to leave them be.

Then Yamato thought better of it, and ordered her to fetch coffee. Coffee and takoyaki.

* * *

"Hot alien twins," Daichi repeated, once again qualifying it with, "If you're into guys."

"They're not actually twins," Hiro reminded him.

"They're finishing each other's sentences!" Or rather Yamato was explaining what the hell Alcor was talking about.

"And Yamato's not an alien."

"He's got tentacles! Chains, whatever." Daichi groaned, hanging his head. "Dude, you're my best friend, but seriously, why do you get all the luck? Hot alien twins."

"Are you jealous?"

Now Daichi held up his hands, alarmed. "One of them's _Yamato._ Better you than me, man." Daichi wasn't into guys, but Yamato was not the kind who took no for an answer, and he had _tentacles? _Daichi knew what would have happened under those circumstances. "Better you than me."


	2. Swords

Even though Hiro had intended to go along with Yamato's World of Merit last reset, Yamato remembering meant that he got Yamato, Fumi _and Alcor _to work on whatever he wanted them to work on. When the day to make a choice came, it was Yamato that suggested that Hiro go along with Ronaldo, since that neatly avoided all the fighting that so distressed Hiro and irritated Yamato.

Also, Yamato said, to Ronaldo's face, "Perhaps if you see that your ideal world is doomed to failure enough times, you'll stop wasting our precious days with your delusion that a world can survive without allowing the strong to follow their own ambitions."

It turned out that being part Septentrione insulated Yamato somewhat from having humanity's instincts rewritten. Fortunately, most of them were too shocked by the very _idea _of it to actually _attack _Yamato for coming in, grabbing some supplies, grabbing some people like Dr. Otome, Fumi, Hiro himself, even Ronaldo, the ones who were vital if this world was going to have any chance to survive and chaining them up to something and forcing them to eat by informing them that they would not be allowed to go help any other people until they _ate something_.

At the end, when supplies ran too low, and not even that worked?

"You are _never doing this again_," Hiro remembered Yamato saying fiercely.

When he woke up in his bed the morning after, he did only the minimum amount of stuff he could get away with before running downstairs to actually _cook _breakfast.

There were perishables in the fridge, and the thought of allowing them to go to waste…

He counted up on his fingers exactly how many boxed lunches he could get away with making, since he would be carrying them around varying lengths of time until he ran into the people that would eat them. Well, Daichi was always too stressed to have breakfast the morning before the exams, so he could make two for him…

Hiro made a mental note to see if he could buy some takoyaki on the way to save Daichi. Hopefully it wouldn't get frozen over during the fight. No, it probably still wouldn't be fresh. He'd get some for Yamato later, to thank him for trying.

* * *

"Hi, Yamato," Hiro said, stepping closer to the leader of JPs. It made him smile to see the look in Yamato's eyes. Who was this person and why were they in his personal space? Referring to him with such familiarity? Especially because Hiro was sure that if it had been anyone else, Yamato would have just turned up the glare at their impertinence. The hints of surprise and confusion in those grey eyes: were they really at someone daring to get to close to him, or were they there because Yamato was surprised at how irritated he _wasn't_? "Remember me?"

His smile grew wider when Yamato's mouth opened, the younger teen frowning slightly, brows furrowing, because yes, there _was _something about this civilian. Did it feel like the answer was on the tip of his tongue?

Well, that or the ends of some of those tentacles.

"Let me refresh your memory," Hiro said, grinning wickedly as he grabbed Yamato's uniform.

Yamato had thought this was an absolutely stupid and suicidal plan. However, since he _did _want to get his memories back on the first day possible so he spent as little time as possible in fruitless pursuit of the world of merit (also without Hiro), he had then insisted on helping Hiro train in order to successfully pull off this maneuver.

The thought of that 'Wait, you want me to practice stripping you?' conversation made Hiro's grin widen as he heard Daichi and Makoto squawk behind him, while Io gasped.

His target was just staring at him, caught in a paralysis of 'what in the name of the ten million gods does this civilian think he is doing?'

Hiro wished he could spare an arm to get out his cell phone camera, because the expressions Yamato's face was going through as he tried to process what was happening were _hilarious_.

Maybe on another repeat, when he had this down. No: right now he needed to remove enough of Yamato's clothing that he could get at the seal and tear it off before any of them managed to convince their brains that yes, as crazy as it was this was actually happening and either Yamato did something magical or Makoto tackled him off her boss. It was still the first day, so right now Yamato was a lot stronger than Hiro was. Fortunately, Hiro was faster and had the advantage of surprise, or rather utter existential shock that the universe was a place where something like this could actually happen. Someone just coming up to him and starting to tear his clothes off in public with absolutely no shame.

Obviously this Yamato hadn't met Joe yet.

"Got it!" Hiro crowed in triumph, tearing the seal off and flinging it across the room. The by-now-familiar chains only swarmed him once the seal was safely gone.

This many? Was Yamato worried that someone might try to shoot Hiro, or was he just happy to see him?

"You… You…" The version of Yamato that didn't remember yet was sputtering, practically, almost half as furious at Hiro as he was at Hiro's companions when Hiro sided with someone else. "I won't allow you to ruin everything!"

The chains around Hiro tightened, but it was only a brief pressure that didn't hurt at all. So the Yamato in the chains still remembered and would protect Hiro until the current Yamato remembered and stopped trying to kill the witnesses. That was a relief, even though he'd trusted that would be the case.

He might have patted one of the chains reassuringly, to let Yamato know that Hiro trusted Yamato to take it from here and wasn't worried, but he was a little tied up at the moment.

"This power… Are you another pawn of the heretic? Did he put you up to this!?" In order to turn JPs against Yamato?

That was unfair. "It was your idea," Hiro said, the cheerfulness of his voice letting them (and his friends) know that he wasn't worried about the chains. "You wanted the valuable tactical information."

"_What _valu-" Yamato started to demand, before realizing, "Ah, their capabilities…" Or at least a mimic of them.

The chains around him shifted a little, Yamato's regard shifting from him to them. Actually thinking about them, and not just how to stuff them back into the box, kill all the witnesses, keep this from having happened so he wasn't marked as an enemy of humanity and ousted from power during what was supposed to be his great chance to save and change this world.

There was a sort of startled jerk in the chains that let Hiro know that Yamato had remembered. The _'_Oh, _that_ is who this strange person is, _this _is what happened and what could possibly inspire someone of above-average intelligence to come in here and start tearing my clothes off.'

Hiro was dropped the few centimeters to the ground as Yamato's chains uncoiled and vanished, not before one of them lifted up Yamato's coat so he could hand it to himself, put it in his actual hands so he could put it on. "It worked."

"Yeah, I kind of figured."

Yes, of course Hiro could figure _that _much out. "I have so much work to do… Sato, this is Hiro Kageyama. Do whatever he tells you to do," he told her, waving at one of the teenagers she'd brought in.

"He's an allied devil summoner?" Makoto asked, brain finally managing to come up with an explanation for this. There were three great summoner clans other than the Hotsuin: if Hiro was some childhood friend of the Chief's, one he hadn't seen in years, that might explain why he acted so… even though it took the Chief a moment to recognize him. And all _that _might have been some mystic thing that was none of her business. Right.

"Yes," Yamato said, because it was true. "Hiro has extensive experience with the enemies we are facing now. Defer to him in all tactical and strategic matters." He had other business to attend to.

And he might give slightly different orders to Nagoya JPs, while he was at it. Ronaldo Kuriki had been somewhat helpful giving advice on how to deal with his earlier self, while he wasn't blubbering or cursing himself for being a failure in foreign languages or trying to convince Yamato to hand him his gun so his share of the food could go to others. If JPs opened up recruitment in Nagoya, saying that given the demon threat they had to reserve their supplies to make sure that the civilians were protected, and then offered to give any volunteers enough to feed themselves and their families? As a police officer, it would be quite reasonable to expect Ronaldo to volunteer to defend Nagoya's civilians, and he would see this as a chance to infiltrate JPs and uncover the evil plots of the evil organization that killed his mentor for violating national secrets acts.

Or tried to, at least. Someone who would vanish, leaving a daughter behind to mourn and a junior officer to make an ass of themselves… Yamato would detail some of his officers to tracking down the man in order to use him to defuse Kuriki, but he doubted most of his incompetent employees were up to finding someone who had survived this long in the first place because they were skilled at evading JPs. He would have to leave that to Hiro, as much as he disliked Hiro wasting his time on something like that.

"What about Al Saiduq?" Hiro asked.

"What about him?" Yamato frowned a little. Well, yes, he knew why Hiro was asking. Gathering his assets and using them in the most efficient manner was only intelligent, and Hiro was certainly that.

"If we find him, we find Fumi, and then she can get the terminals working early." Hiro drew folded sheets of paper out of a pocket. "I drew up a couple different schedules on the way to the exams." If he could go to Nagoya during the time he would have been taking the subway to and from Osaka, he could start working on Airi and Jungo, and tracking down Dera-Deka, early.

"I will secure him by the end of the day." Fumi wouldn't mind working overnight, especially if he gave her a few people to test the terminals on. There would be no more incidents with Makoto.

Now that he had a little more experience using the other part of him, Yamato thought he might feel Alcor, but he didn't want to grab and subdue him here, when he was already being forced to meet people's eyes and give them glares that told them that no, they hadn't seen anything, and what they really should be worrying about was what the Director was going to do to them if they didn't get back to work. At least there hadn't been too many people in here, and no one should connect his chains to Dubhe's freakish appearance. They looked nothing alike.

"I'm counting on you, Yamato," Hiro said, and he was. He even pressed copies of his graph-paper schedules – made by hand, clearly just so Yamato would have them - into Yamato's hands.

Yamato was unaware of the slight blush on his face as his fingers curled around the token of Hiro's respect for him and desire to keep him in the loop.

The times that Hiro had marked off to spend time with Yamato would be put into Yamato's own calendar as soon as he got back to the office. He knew that of course the others would take up much more of Hiro's time than Yamato did – after all there were twelve of them and one of him – but Yamato was already on Hiro's side, so Hiro didn't really need to spend time with him.

For a moment he feared that Hiro would have taken that into consideration when making this schedule, taken Yamato's times with Hiro and given those precious hours to other people in order to develop his bonds with them, but no. Surely Hiro wouldn't do that.

Especially if Yamato secured Alcor and with him Fumi as soon as possible, giving Hiro precious extra hours to spend on strengthening his power as the Shining One. Oh, and eventually bringing an end to this, but Yamato didn't really care about that.

He had what he wanted, and the longer this went on, the more time Yamato would have to design a _better _world of merit and learn enough about people to convince Hiro to support him in it.

Of course, bringing back the old world, _and _making sure Hiro remembered so he could remove Yamato's seal (Yamato didn't really care about the others remembering, especially if they remembered how much they liked Hiro), _and _imposing a perfect world of merit… That might be a little much for Alcor's tiny brain, since they were going to have to erase Polaris and that left his sword to become their plowshare and build the new world.

Well, the sooner Yamato got his own business taken care of, the sooner _he _would have time to spend with Hiro.

And Yamato's business included going down to the Dragon Stream summoning circle, where there were no witnesses, and dragging Alcor into their reality.

Strangely, it wasn't as simple as peeling him off Hiro's radiance. Had he felt like he wasn't allowed to touch that light until Hiro managed to grow close enough to him in each timeline?

Once again, the heretic did not seem frightened or intimidated by the tentacles around him.

Yamato wasn't expecting Alcor to narrow his eyes as soon as he saw the Hotsuin and transform into his cube form.

Oh. Yes. He should have anticipated that, Yamato realized as he felt the heretic's curse take effect on him. This was right after Alcor realized Yamato Hotsuin intended to use the power, the _trust _Alcor had given his clan to pact with Polaris and betray humanity. So, from what Alcor knew, Yamato Hotsuin deserved to die.

For being stupid enough to trust Polaris, if nothing else. In hindsight, Yamato had to agree.

If he did this again, he thought as he dodged and pulled out his cell phone, glad Alcor wasn't attacking the chains or else he would be dead a thousand times over, of a thousand cuts, he would _definitely _make sure to have Hiro here when he did this. The Shining One's light seemed to have a pacifying effect on Alcor. That made sense, since it mimicked the power of Polaris and the septentriones were meant to submit to their creator, not argue with him.

Yamato did not draw any connection between that and the effect Hiro had on _him. _Hiro was strong, intelligent, and had introduced him to sex and takoyaki. He was also warm and Yamato liked coiling around him. It awoke a sense of primal contentment in him that had nothing to do with Alcor and all the ways in which he was pathetic.

Hiro was absolutely nothing like that lying bastard Polaris, so how Yamato, even his septentrione side reacted to Hiro had absolutely nothing to do with Polaris. Just thinking about it made his lip curl into a sneer of distaste.

The point was to subdue Alcor intact enough to be of use, not to have the pleasure of defeating him. Yamato knew that, and yet he told himself that if Alcor was being difficult, was fighting back? Yamato hadn't fought Hiro when Hiro tried to return his memories. (Yamato, being Yamato, didn't acknowledge that was only because he'd been too startled to.)

"You are strong, Yamato Hotsuin," Alcor said after they'd gone a couple of rounds and the cube looked a little worse for wear.

Yamato smirked, not with pride but almost fondly. If Hiro had been there, he would have made a note that this was almost the first time Yamato had looked that way at anyone but Hiro. "My demons are strong." The power Alcor had given humanity, the power Yamato had gained while fighting at Hiro's side. This was the first day: if he was using only his own strength and only the demons he'd had back then, he would never have survived Alcor's assault.

Yamato would have to find time to get stronger, and check to make sure Hiro had put opportunities for training into his schedule.

"That may be so, but I will not let you hand humanity's fate over to Polaris!" Alcor declared, transforming into the star.

"I have no intention of doing so." Because that would be stupid. "Not anymore." Yamato _hated _the thought that only an hour ago, before Hiro unsealed his memories, Yamato _had been _just that stupid.

"I know that humans can say things that are not true, Yamato Hotsuin. That is known as a _lie_. I will not be deceived by you again!" The way he had been deceived into giving Yamato so much knowledge, until the Hotsuin laughed and revealed to him that he had other plans, better things to do than defending this country and humanity.

"Humans can lie," Yamato agreed, "but I'm not only human, am I? See for yourself." He coiled a little more of himself around Alcor, entwining with the metal coiled around that star form.

"That would break your mind, Yamato Hotsuin. I may have contaminated the files of your clan, you may be correct to hate me for this, but I would not do that to you."

"…So you didn't do this to us deliberately, so that you could connect to our minds and satisfy your cravings for companionship?" His need to have other minds connected to his?

Silence, until Alcor admitted, "I do not understand what you mean, Yamato Hotsuin. Is this somehow connected to the human ability to form bonds with others without being able to connect?" That miraculous power. "Regardless, the way humans think and the way we septentriones perceive the universe are incompatible. For our minds to connect would break you, and possibly me as well." Not that Alcor was as bothered by that thought as he was by the thought of doing that to Yamato, enemy or not.

Not when Alcor had wanted to die, until Yamato connected to him. The Shining One's soothing light helped, but it wasn't enough to kill the pain, to fill up the empty ache inside of him where he had been torn away from his brothers.

Yamato was delighted. "So Hiro isn't the only one growing stronger from all of this?" Io's matchless ability to harness the power of gods. Ronaldo's ability to rally an army. Even Daichi, who Yamato almost hated for having Hiro to himself for all those years, had somehow managed to find some means of breaking a septentrione's defense. If it weren't for him, Dubhe would have been just as much trouble as Betesnach to defeat.

If these repetitions continued, if Hiro had more time to work on all of them, then what? Would they all become worthwhile companions? Io was almost there, although her shy hesitation had turned Yamato off until his World of Merit cured it.

"Hiro… The Shining One? Yamato Hotsuin, do you have designs on the Shining One?" Yamato could feel Alcor's aura crackle with protective anger.

"You think _I…_" when Yamato had been convinced that _Alcor _was the one planning to seduce and ruin Hiro?

Although, unlike Yamato, Alcor was perfectly correct. Yamato certainly did have designs on the Shining One and that power, that _light_.

If Yamato was Alcor, if Alcor had any brains, he would snatch Hiro up every time this began, the instant he sensed that power, wrap around it and never let go. If it weren't for the septentrione's inability to choose his own purpose, then instead of being the Sword of Polaris, he could be the Sword of Hiro.

Even thinking about that made Yamato's chains twitch jealously, so perhaps it was to his benefit that Alcor was so stupid.

Last time, he had simply reached for the septentrione equivalent of USB ports and cables, the parts of Alcor that were meant to hook up to the others but had been scarred over if not outright torn out by the violence with which Polaris tore him loose from the others. Alcor had barely managed to put up a fight that time. This time, though, he'd attacked Yamato right away, because they were enemies. If Yamato tried to break into Alcor's mind, possibly killing them both?

Yes: Yamato underscored that mental note to do this with Hiro there next time. If Hiro's light reminded Alcor's of his master's (only obviously far superior to Polaris' radiance), of the days when he was able to connect to the others, then no wonder the part of Alcor that didn't _want _to fight being given something he missed so much it tortured him every eternal instant had won out over self-preservation and any lingering desire he had not to hurt the mostly-human Yamato Hotsuin. If Yamato Hotsuin was so determined to invade Alcor's mind, then let him suffer the consequences.

That was what Yamato would have done: he loved to see fools suffer the consequences of their own actions. The universe was so rarely fair.

"Your mind won't hurt me." Not when Alcor barely had a mind. "Think of it as one of those strange powers of humanity." Yamato resisted the immature impulse to fold his arms. "Hiro… The Shining One showed me that you were right: humanity can't trust Polaris, so I can't have my world of merit." Not yet, anyway. "And he needs you to give back Fumi so he can use the terminals. "So hurry up and connect to me so you can see for yourself that I'm not lying, or I'll wrap around Hiro so tightly that you can't have _any _of it."

That would have ensured immediate compliance on any later day, he was sure of it, after Alcor had more of a chance to taste that light, to feel it soothe that deep pain.

Truth be told, if it weren't for his family's ability to use the dragon stream, Yamato was certain he wouldn't come close to being able to absorb all of that power. Still, it was a power of life and humanity, and that was what his clan specialized in. What he couldn't absorb, he could at least tie up so Alcor couldn't have it.

Hmm, that was a thought. If Hiro could provide enough power for even a single one of the shields to stay up after defeating Mizar…

Hiro wanted this over with.

Yamato had never felt so _alive_. It was because of these repetitions that he had Hiro, after all: why kill the temporal phenomenon that laid the golden eggs? Not until they had their perfect happy ending. So what if it wasn't as simple as Yamato thought? He hadn't thought it was possible to have a Hiro, either, so this was clearly much better than his original plan.

"If you are lying, Yamato Hotsuin, you will die," Alcor reminded him, because even wild and angry Alcor was still pathetically nice enough to give warnings like that. Like Otome's death clip.

"Just hurry it up," Yamato told him, smirking as the coils descended on him.

It was rather like having a knot in his back for hours or even days, after some ill-advised combination of training and paperwork, and then feeling the release of tension and accompanying endorphins as it was worked out and his body returned to a functional state, the way it _should _be. Alcor's enmity was worrying, in the same way it would be worrying to have a furious Clicky giving him that back massage, with those hands so close to his neck and possibly a gun leveled at the back of his head, but there was still an inevitable sense of blessed relief, of _finally_.

Alcor's suffering was so much worse, and Yamato could feel him melt, feel him become the squishy wounded thing he'd been before instead of a drawn blade even before Yamato tugged Alcor over to Yamato's memories.

When Alcor followed the links from Yamato's memory files to Alcor's own memory files of that timeline, Yamato found himself with bony arms wrapped around him, Alcor's human form pressed up against Yamato's back, face pressing into the curve of Yamato's neck, muffled by his hair, as more of those metal coils entwined with his own chains, forming point after point of connection. Yamato's mostly-human brain couldn't follow most of the fourth-dimensional shuffling of their various bits Alcor did to let them get comfortable even though Yamato still had far fewer connection points than Alcor did, but when it was over?

Alcor didn't feel quite comfortable, and it hurt just like the stretching of unused muscles. On them both, really. Alcor was right about the danger: if there wasn't some core of strength in Yamato, he would have lost himself in this, when Alcor had experienced so much more, so many alien things. Oh.

His connection to Hiro. The bonds built up over time. How had he not realized that was what made him so sure of his own identity? Apparently it wasn't just septentriones: humans also defined themselves through their connections to others. Their minds could be bound together.

It was Yamato that shifted his other body to wrap Alcor up in chains again, even as dampness made its way through his hair to trickle down his neck and soak into his collar.

Like their respective stars, the Alcor system had almost been a part of the Mizar system. None of the septentriones were meant to operate alone, but Yamato could feel how it calmed Alcor to be wrapped up in another entity again.

Like a sword belonged in its sheath, instead of exposed to the elements. That was a good way to ruin fine steel.

Of course, that must have been Polaris' intention. Let Alcor be ruined, let him become weak, both so that he was no threat and in order to terrify the others. Let them see how rebellion and separation were nothing less than a living hell.

Yamato somehow managed to move parts of Alcor, to wrap him a little around Hiro's radiance. Alcor had felt much healthier when Yamato connected to him before, but that was after soaking up that warmth for days. At least some part of Alcor hadn't given up, if he had still sought out the comfort the Shining One's power provided. Or was it that part of him just wanted the pain to stop?

No matter what it took. Almost no matter what it took. All this, and he'd still tried to help humanity, when weren't they the reason he was suffering like this in the first place? Humanity and Polaris.

Alcor snapped his fingers. "Bifrons."

"Yes, Master?"

"Have Botis return Fumi Kanno to JPs."

So, it seemed that Alcor had kept going through Yamato's knowledge of what must be done even as he sniveled on Yamato's shoulder. His voice showed no trace of the inner turmoil Yamato could feel: wise, when dealing with demons. Especially Bifrons, who Alcor had subdued in order to keep him from attacking humans and was only restrained by his fear of Alcor's considerable power.

It was after Bifrons was gone that Alcor nuzzled at his neck and said "Yamato Hotsuin…" in a breathy, thankful, submissive way that went straight to a certain part of him. The septentrione was clearly grateful enough to do anything Yamato desired as long as it didn't involve letting go of the human. Normally, Yamato found begging and pleading and all those displays of weakness a turn-off, but right now Alcor was tied into his own mind, his own memories, and Yamato's memories of speaking to Hiro…

In the world of merit, there was absolutely no shame in being put in his place by one stronger. The problem was that of the two of them, Alcor was the stronger… Slightly. Hiro hadn't managed to reach level five with Alcor until the last round, so while Alcor was inherently stronger than Yamato, he had far less of that power to draw on.

Yamato realized that he and the heretic, the incredibly powerful being that blessed his clan with scraps of that power, were just about equals. He'd never had an equal until he first met Hiro, and now he knew better than that. Hiro had clearly been superior to him from the beginning. Yamato still liked the thought of having equals, after having such a good experience with his first one. Hiro was everything he had hoped to gain from from his world of merit, and more.

Alcor was still sad, pathetic, and soggy when he wasn't trying to kill Yamato, but having someone like him? Someone that couldn't look down on him for not being human when they weren't human at all?

Yamato _supposed_ it wasn't too much of a burden, even if having the clingy alien plastered to his back would make it harder to maintain proper posture while reading reports or sending out orders.

If Yamato tolerated Alcor, then hopefully Hiro would continue to demonstrate this positive reinforcement technique for him, which was like discipline in that it was only used on underlings who were worth it.

Yes: The only reason Yamato could see for not wanting this week to go on forever was that if Hiro wasn't scrambling to spend time with everyone else, he would have more time for Yamato.


	3. Hands

_Daichi: a lot of Daichi's negative character traits become a lot more understandable in a reboot 'verse. If he's aware on some level that if they fight, then people who are friends of his are going to die? _

_He's the one who gives the 'alas poor definitely-not-a-villain' speech when Yamato dies in Alcor's route, and he's also the one who seems to realize that something is wrong and tries to sound the alarm when Alcor goes to take Heaven's Throne and after that they'll never see him again._

_Growing up best friends with a protagonist is going to give someone issues about how they just can't measure up: it's kind of nice of him to not let this turn into resentment of Hiro, although a shadow!Daichi would probably be incredibly resentful of Hiro. _

_The paralyzing fear of screwing up if he tries to do things, of people dying because he isn't good enough… The thing is that the game shows that when Daichi _does _do something proactive like, oh, Dubhe and his ending, he's generally doing the right thing. Like Io, he needs more self-confidence. _

_Since Daichi cares so much about his friends, he wouldn't find any of the game's canon endings really acceptable in that regard, while a Hiro who understood how much Alcor is going through could accept the Perfect Ending (although, the bit with the summon app site could imply that Alcor got brought back along with the rest of the human race…). _

_I think I may adopt squid-flavored chips as something of a running gag._

* * *

The thing about Al Saiduq was that he filled Daichi with this deep feeling of _worry_.

Not in the same way Yamato did, even though they were both powerful, probably-too-smart-for-Daichi white-haired prettyboys and Daichi had played enough RPGs to know what happened with them. If Hiro didn't know Yamato, Daichi would have been glumly certain that he was going to be the final boss, and one heck of a difficult one at that.

Which would be a shame because he was their friend even if he was kind of scary. Daichi really didn't want to fight him. He didn't want to fight anyone.

Anyway, while Yamato made him worry that if he screwed up somehow, like getting a little too touchy-feely with Hiro then he was going to get it, Al Saiduq made Daichi worry not about his own skin but about Al Saiduq.

"Does he look a little pale to you?" he asked Io.

Was he sick? Should he really be up and levitating around like that? Should they get Dr. Otome? Would chicken soup help? Or a warm cloth to put on his head or something?

Looking at him made _Daichi_ want to hover around him, like part of him was certain that Saiduq was going to keel over at any moment and need to be taken to the hospital. Like he was so fragile Daichi might break a bone just patting him on the back.

Io shook her head. "I think that's normal for him, but," but she looked worried about him too. "I wonder if Yamato knows something, and that's why he's making him rest?"

"Maybe." Yeah, Saiduq probably was the kind of person who would push himself too hard even if he wasn't feeling well. If he had magical powers, was that why Yamato had wrapped _this many _chains around him before leaving Saiduq here and telling him to stay with Io until Yamato got back?

Daichi hadn't rated a mention, but that was fine. He'd rather slip under Yamato's radar, even if he wasn't nearly as good at that as Joe was. The thing was, Daichi had known that Hiro was bi forever, basically. It was one of the reasons he was the best wingman ever even though he was kind of an everything-magnet. Another reason was that Hiro liked just about everyone, so he didn't mind starting a conversation with the target's friend, brother or poor friend-zoned guy while Daichi tried and generally failed to move in for any sort of kill.

It wasn't that disheartening that Io liked Hiro because _everyone _liked Hiro. Daichi was pretty secure about his own sexuality because, let's face it, if he wasn't going to fall for Hiro, when Hiro was his best friend in addition to being _Hiro_, then he was doomed to never be able to convince anyone that he was gay and it was therefore safe to take their tops off in front of him.

Hiro and Yamato suddenly becoming a thing was probably only half the reason Hinako was so free with those hugs while wearing that top of hers, but Daichi was used to it by now. He tried not to let it bug him, because it wasn't like Hiro was doing it on purpose. If he was, Daichi would know. And Yamato would probably kill her, and then the world would be out one incredible pair of legs.

"Um," Io said quietly, lowering herself down next to Alcor to poke at the silver mummy, "Are you alright in there?"

"I am fine, Io Nitta," he reassured her.

"Are you sure?" Daichi asked. "You don't need some water or anything? Or I could get you some chips from the vending machine." Before the vending machine ran out. Now that Daichi thought about it, he hadn't actually seen Alcor eat. Yeah, Hiro had given him one out of that big bag of boxed lunches, but Alcor had just looked down at it after Hiro put it in his hands like he was touched and otherwise didn't know what to do with it. Daichi hadn't actually seen him open it.

He just hoped Yamato hadn't confiscated it because it was made by Hiro. He'd sounded a little upset to be left out of the boxed lunches even though Hiro had assured him that wasn't because he'd forgotten Yamato, it was because he wanted to go out to eat takoyaki with him instead. Hopefully the prospect of an actual date had mollified Yamato.

The head of JPs was really calm and collected for a kid even younger than them: why was Daichi so convinced that he was going to lock them up or something? Although Daichi wouldn't blame him after that stunt Hiro pulled to say hello.

"I don't need food or water," and food would run out, "but you wish to offer me bread and salt, Daichi Shijima?"

"Um, yes?" Daichi said, scratching the back of his head. "Any friend of Hiro's is a friend of mine."

"Isn't human friendship wonderful?" The chains started to shift, sliding around each other and making an opening that Saiduq could levitate up out of like some kind of red and black butterfly. "I am unsure if rice is an acceptable substitute for bread, but fish contain salt," Saiduq said, holding out his hands as the boxed lunch appeared in them.

"Um, that's okay man. Hiro made that for you." Daichi held up his hands to show that he appreciated the gesture, but he wasn't going to take that from him. Wait, rice didn't count as bread, but chips did? Well, they were baked starches, or whatever.

Daichi really didn't know. He wasn't going to ask, not when Saiduq made his head hurt somehow and Daichi was a cat of very little brain. When even _Joe _said something like that about you, even if it was coupled with a smile and a hand ruffling his hair to show no offense meant, then you really knew you didn't have all that much going on upstairs. Even if he had done pretty well on the test earlier, he thought. Not anywhere near good enough, but he'd had déjà vu the whole time and kept thinking he knew the answers, that he'd seen these problems before.

The more certain he was that he was right, the more likely he was wrong, though. And he'd probably made it worse by second-guessing himself, you weren't supposed to do that… Aargh, he hated tests. And he hadn't gotten that shopping trip he'd planned to detox. Instead, he got demons.

If it weren't for getting to hang out with Io, today would suck.

(Daichi determinedly ignored the memories of people being burnt alive by Dubhe, and the part of him that knew that so far, he really had no idea, no idea at all, how much today had really sucked.)

He almost reached out a hand to Al Saiduq, wanting him to stop hovering in case he fell, but then something made him jerk the hand back, worried that if he so much as touched the guy he'd end up hurting him. What was this freaky premonition? Like when he was in that truck, and he knew that if he didn't get back there, didn't do something _his friends were going to die. _

"I'll go get you those chips," he said instead, and tried not to make it obvious that he was running.

Saiduq still looked a little sad, at Daichi's disappearing back. "So he wants us to share bread and salt because he is worried that I will attack humans."

"What?" Io exclaimed. "Oh, now," she said, holding up her hands the way Daichi had, trying to forestall that thought, keep him from thinking such a thing. "He's just worried about you. You look like you aren't feeling so good."

He blinked at her. "I am fine, Io Nitta."

"Are you sure? Yamato seemed to think that you really needed to lie down." It appeared that instead of using too many chains, Yamato hadn't used _enough _to make sure Saiduq stayed there and rested.

"Yamato Hotsuin… My Companion Star," Saiduq corrected himself as his hand rose to his mouth and something that might have been a small, trembling smile came to his lips, the smile of someone overwhelmed. "He did not want me acting like a facehugger while he gave orders to his subordinates."

"Oh, eww," Daichi said, back with the chips. He'd gotten some of the last ones, too. "Yamato knows what facehuggers are?"

"It was the Shining One that made the comparison."

"Right. Anyway, I got two different flavors: which do you want?"

Saiduq looked back and forth between the chips Daichi held up. "I think the… squid flavored ones?" He touched one of the chains that still hung over his shoulder. "Those should contain salt, yes?"

"They're chips: they all contain salt," Daichi said, opening the bag. "Why do you need salt? Have you got heatstroke or something?"

"I'll go get you something to drink," Io said as Saiduq took the bag from Daichi and peered curiously down at its contents.

He finally plucked a chip out of the bag, but instead of eating it he put it on top of one of the moving loops of chain, which then vanished.

"What? Where'd it go?" Daichi asked. Yeah, both ends of all the loops of chain went into thin air, but for all he knew that was just how summoned magic chains worked, the way demons appeared out of thin air. A piece of real stuff, or processed food anyway, disappearing like that was new.

"My Companion Star wanted a taste." Saiduq paused. "He said that I should eat them, since they are empty carbohydrates and that way he can still taste them without risking a heart attack for something that isn't as good as fresh takoyaki." He nodded and carefully picked up another chip.

Your Com-You mean Yamato?" Daichi asked. "He can taste what you eat? Like you're twins or something?"

"Companion stars are sometimes called twin stars, but Yamato Hotsuin's twin is Miyako Hotsuin. No, they cannot taste what the other eats, or read each other's thoughts," Alcor said, head tilted to the side as though he was listening. "Although apparently many thought they should be able to, because of the Hotsuin Clan's strong spiritual powers." He put a chip in his mouth and chewed carefully.

When he winced, Daichi asked, "Are you alright?"

"I am not used to chewing. Human teeth are surprisingly sharp, but I am fine, Daichi Shijima," Saiduq reassured him. "I will be more careful with the rest of your gift."

He continued to eat the chips one-by-one, with a look of intense concentration on his face.

"Are you a demon or something?" Daichi asked. "I mean, it's okay if you are! Nicaea really helped us out, and any friend of Hiro's is a friend of ours, right, Io?"

She nodded, wanting to reassure Saiduq. She didn't think he was used to having friends, poor guy.

"No one can answer the question of what they are, but I am not a demon," he told Daichi finally.

"I was just wondering, since you're not used to eating, and you kind of need to eat every day," if you're human… "Unless they had you on a liquid diet?" Or what about IV needles?

"I do not eat. Unless I am invited to." Bread and salt and other human traditions. It worried them if he did not accept their food, even when the humans had so little.

"You really don't need to eat?" Io asked. "But you're so thin…" She wrung her hands. "Are you really alright? You called yourself the Anguished One." And Anguish wasn't a sign of someone that was happy or healthy, it meant they needed help.

"That is why no one can answer the question of what they are. I have a Companion Star now, and the Shining One. So I am no longer anguished." He smiled at her. "Thank you for your concern, Io Nitta." Was this human compassion? Because she was friends with the Shining One?

"Dude, you were crying," Daichi reminded him, made deeply uncomfortable both by the memory and by actually saying that, rubbing it in. If Saiduq cared about that.

"Yes. Part of that was because my new happiness made my anguish seem even worse," by virtue of having something to compare it to, something even better than before. "But I am happy now, Daichi Shijima. The Shining One has given me a new purpose, and I have a Companion Star to orbit with." That pale face smiled for them, skin and hair almost the color of death, especially next to the black and red of his shirt. The white lace at that thin neck matched his skin tone far too well.

It was only the evening of the first day, so Daichi and Io weren't quite sure why they were so worried about the future. Yes, there had been a disaster and people had been killed, but surely JPs would handle it. They would keep helping out if they could and of course if Hiro thought it was best, but they should have been in denial, should have been focused on getting home.

Io had been trying to get home almost desperately until Dubhe…

No, she didn't want to think that it was too late! Too late for her parents, or for Saiduq! She couldn't bear for it to be too late, wouldn't let it!

The fact he was so happy now almost made Daichi even more worried for him, because someone who had been so sad for so long… It would suck if that happiness was taken from him, just like that. It would suck if he died now, when he finally had something to live for, even if Daichi wasn't sure how that would work out with _Yamato_, when Yamato already had a glaringly obvious thing for Hiro.

Those chains coiled around him, almost like they were waiting to drag him down to hell… No, Yamato wouldn't do that, he was a good guy. Maybe they were to protect him? Yamato knew all this mystic stuff, so he could probably protect Saiduq from whatever was out to get him better than Daichi could, right?

"I wonder where Hiro is," Daichi said to himself. Hiro would know what to do, right? What was wrong with Saiduq and what to do about it so Daichi wouldn't have to worry so much.

"The Shining One is with the Child of Possibility," Saiduq said, which told him absolutely nothing.

Except that, "How do you know that?"

"I am always with the Shining One," Saiduq answered, smiling like of course he was, everyone should know that. Or it just made him very happy to stalk Hiro and he thought everyone should try it, hard to say.

* * *

That trembling joy filled the part of him that was them, and reminded him of long ago classes in physics and astronomy. Bodies in space orbited each other: he and Alcor were now as closely tied as Alcor and Mizar had been. Almost. Yamato was still mostly human, after all.

Even so, those ecstatic frequencies were shaking Alcor, and since they were so entwined they shook him in turn. It wasn't a painful feeling. It almost might have been easier to ignore if it was.

Instead it was shock at this good fortune, at this miracle. To be by Hiro's side. Feelings that Yamato shared, so it wasn't as though he could wall them out. Not when he wanted to share the taste of every sip Alcor took of that light. Just as Yamato's mind knew how to sort and classify physical sensations, Alcor could appreciate the Shining One in ways Yamato couldn't, not unless he tapped into Alcor.

Still, Yamato would prefer it if the septentrione could settle down a little about it. Oh, he was outwardly calm, even as Hiro's friends decided to get him soup so he wouldn't accidently bite himself and continued to treat him as though he was sick or had some congenital defect or something, but even though it was all to the good for the Hotsuin Clan's patron god to not act _too _embarrassing, even though he was a foreign god, after all, it was his inner thoughts that Yamato was currently hooked up to.

Alcor wanted to do something to express his thanks to the Shining One, since Hiro couldn't just feel Alcor's devotion. Yamato had _told _him that physically hugging Hiro instead of clinging to Yamato all the time would be _more _than enough, and Alcor had already experienced that Hiro was more likely to respond with pats on the head and other signs of affection.

Unfortunately, the septentrione had a hard time choosing his own purposes and goals. He had given early humans fire because they wanted to be warm, and language so that they could communicate more effectively even though they couldn't connect, but Hiro didn't want all that much that Alcor could provide, other than Alcor's own happiness and a replacement administrator.

Hiro, Yamato thought, was too humble in his ambitions. If only he wanted to rule the world!

It was only half Alcor's fault that more than half of Yamato's attention during the meeting was focused on Hiro and what Hiro wanted. That _Yamato _could give him. There was takoyaki, but Hiro seemed to prefer feeding it to Yamato to eating it himself. Of course there was money, but Hiro didn't seem all that interested in the Hotsuin clan's money, power and prestige. That was something of a relief, since Yamato despised _that _sort, but if he wanted to make Hiro happy with that money he would first have to buy something with it, and as Hiro was demonstrating Yamato knew very little about the various pleasures available to civilians.

Fortunately, Yamato didn't need to devote more than a quarter of his brain to the meeting. Afterwards, he called Sato to his office and began to interrogate her on what people who weren't JPs wanted.

This somehow culminated in Akie wandering in and dropping a large collection of brochures for tropical getaways on Yamato's desk, the places he was considering going on honeymoon with his girlfriend.

"You have a girlfriend?" Someone was foolish enough to be willing to marry Akie? Akie would be _breeding_?

That aside, this 'tropical vacation' concept seemed interesting. Hiro might enjoy it, and most importantly, having half the planet or so between him and his friends meant that Yamato could have Hiro's attention (almost) all to himself.

At least today's schedule gave Yamato the half-hour before they went to bed (another thing Hiro would definitely like: sex), but as much as Yamato enjoyed the benefits of these resets, he wanted _more Hiro_.

* * *

Makoto knocked on the door, opening it a moment later and only then realizing that she shouldn't have just walked in. "Oh! I'm sorry."

"Hey, Hiro," Daichi said, coming in behind her. "Saiduq is still running a fever: Dr. Otome thinks it's his normal body temperature, but can you ask Yamato what normal is for whatever Saiduq is-Yamato!"

He jerked back, startled, as Io looked around him. "Yamato? Oh, hello," she said, blushing.

"Do you people always have to barge in here?" Yamato demanded. "Why can't we use my quarters?" he asked Hiro grumpily, hair even more messed-up than usual.

"_Because _they always barge in here," Hiro said, leaning over to mess up Yamato's grey hair further. "And they wouldn't do that if we were in your quarters. Some of them wouldn't," he corrected himself. "Probably." Turning back to the door, he blinked. "Oh, hey Ronaldo." He smiled at the man: so he was already infiltrating-getting integrated into JPs? Good!

"Hello, Hiro." He was just following Makoto. He peered around her the way Io had around Daichi (although Io had made her way forward a little and now Daichi was peering around her) to look at the other teenager in Hiro's bed. Yamato? Was this slight girly-boy really the infamous Yamato Hotsuin?

"I'll, I'll call housekeeping so they know to bring your breakfast here instead of to your quarters," Makoto said, trying not to blush.

"Tell them I want takoyaki," Yamato told her. "And Hiro will have…." He looked at the other boy.

"Whatever Yamato would have had is fine." Hiro didn't want to cause extra work.

Yamato looked pleased that Hiro trusted his good taste, even though Hiro knew of more delicacies. Also, having Hiro on a healthy diet would extend his lifespan. When they didn't die in the line of duty, the Dragon Stream would keep the Hotsuin alive longer than most civilians lived, even now.

Ronaldo still looked displeased by the idea that the head of JPs was expecting lavish breakfasts in bed while Nagoya and the other cities were quickly running out of food, despite the cops being told to spread the word for everyone to tighten their belts to preserve the food they had, because it would be 'some time' until relief supplies arrived.

As Makoto ducked out to make the call, Hiro turned to Daichi, who even though he was wearing one of the volunteer JPs badges seemed to be a fellow civilian and a friend of his. "I don't know if Saiduq can get sick-Can he?" he asked Yamato.

"They've been fussing over him since I had that meeting yesterday," Yamato told him, finally sitting up properly. "Didn't you wonder why he isn't here? Physically. He's still in Shijima's bed with extra blankets wrapped around him, since Otome didn't have room in the infirmary for people who aren't sick."

"He isn't sick? You're sure?" Daichi asked, frowning.

"No, he isn't, so as funny as it was to watch secondhand, you can stop tip-toeing around him like he's made of spun glass. He's far more durable than you are right now, he's not going to die even if you did your worst…" Yamato paused, raising a finger to tell them to hold that thought as he looked at Hiro. Was Hiro thinking what he was thinking.

"Except for the last one, I've never… He always, well." Hiro looked sad and a little disappointed in himself.

"Do you think this means…"

Hiro nodded. "If it's about bonds, then Daichi is my best friend, and he's always the first I get to level five with. A lot of you don't really make friends with people who aren't me, too, but Daichi always has a few level threes by the last day, and sometimes even level five with Io."

Yamato gave Daichi a weighing look that didn't take a moment to become severely disappointed. "He's nothing like you." Damn.

"Well, think about how he doesn't want to fight. When if we fight…" Someone would die. Except last time, when they managed to avoid the fighting, someone had always died.

"So his subconscious memories were motivating him to try to avoid casualties, even… Well, ones that _were _inevitable." Yamato wouldn't have given up on his ideals without a chance to fight to make them work. Even now, he knew Hiro knew that Yamato hadn't _given up_. He was just trying to think of another way to achieve his goals, one that would actually work. "I suppose memories of repeated failures might have had a demoralizing effect." On Daichi.

"Hey, Hiro!" a short redhead said, pushing Daichi aside in order to barge in. "They're not letting my dad out of that cell! Do something! Oh, hey Ronaldo."

Ronaldo stared. "Airi? Airi Ban?" Was she infiltrating JPs too, after her father tried so hard to keep her from knowing anything about their investigation, anything that might put her in danger as well? Wait. "Your dad?"

Hiro leaned over Yamato to grab a piece of folded graph paper from the bedside table. "Can it wait until 10:30? I thought you'd want some time to yell at him about letting you think he was dead, too. This way, you have a captive audience." And she could wear him down for Hiro. "Would you mind taking Ronaldo with you?" he asked, scribbling down notes on the sheet of paper. "Unless you need him for something, Makoto?"

"No, I was just showing him how the terminals work and giving him a tour, since he's going to be our liaison with the volunteer forces in Nagoya."

"Alright. What did you come here for? Just to let me know that you don't think you'll be able to get me home?"

"…Yes. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he reassured her. "Even if I could, I'd rather stay here and help for now anyway." Until he had a home to go back to again, one way or another.

"Are you sure? You've really done more than enough to help, in such a short time…" Her eyes went to that graph paper schedule: how did someone have a schedule for an unprecedented disaster like this? She could believe something like that of the always-prepared chief, but Hiro was nowhere near as, well…

"He's sure, Sato," Yamato said, sounding more than a little grumpy. His eyes were narrowed at his subordinate: was she trying to convince Hiro to leave? "He's in far less danger of getting himself killed than most of the idiots under my command, and JPs needs every asset it can acquire in order to fulfill our mission of protecting Japan. Do I make myself clear?"

"Y-Yes, Director Hotsuin," she said, backing down.

"Now all of you, leave so we can get back to what we were doing," Yamato said with a smirk.

"Right, totally," Daichi said, and would have flashed Hiro a thumbs-up if they weren't in front of Yamato.

Daichi didn't, but Joe did: where had he even come from? Attracted by all the noise? All of the Tokyo civilian volunteers had been given rooms on this hall.

"We were _sleeping!" _Hiro said as Io's face turned red. "Yamato tried to get up and go back to work after we talked last night, so I didn't let him leave."

"I was lured here with promises of…"

"You're a teenager: you need at least seven hours when stuff like this is happening!"

"Please: I could do this in my sleep, and I have you to-"

"You have to organize things to keep everyone alive! At this point, killing the septentriones is a lot easier than doing that!"

"But they're just going to come back to life any-"

"Yamato! Letting people die, people with _families_, just because you don't care enough to do your damn job? Laziness is even worse than being incompetent when the result is the same."

"…Touche," the head of JPs muttered.

"I know that's how the politicians treated your family, but we both know that doesn't make it okay," Hiro said, with the air of someone who would keep repeating himself until it sank in. "Alright. Breakfast, and then we both have work to do, and then if you're very good and remember to have three meals today, you can finally lose your virginity."

This time, the incoherent noises of surprise came from Makoto, Ronaldo and Io. Daichi was too shocked to make a sound and Joe doubled over laughing.

"I am not a virgin!" Yamato insisted, blushing more than Io.

"Actually, at the moment, you technically kind of are," Hiro said, grinning.


	4. Friends

When they reappeared, Ronaldo did a quick check to make sure that he hadn't lost any of his limbs en route. He was _never _going to get used to traveling by terminal.

The Hotsuin was already giving orders. "Head for the top of the tower," he told one group. "If you see any groups of survivors within reasonable sortie range, I want you to mark them on the map. Only contact me if there are any groups that seem as though they could provide assistance while being escorted back to the tower so your team doesn't exhaust your fighting strength. We have one hour – move."

After they said, "Yes, Chief," and left to start locating people, that was when Ronaldo grabbed the little shit's collar. Time was of the essence if they were going to save anyone. "You said there were no survivors here!"

"Yes. I lied." Yamato gave him a level look that might have been impressive if Ronaldo hadn't seen a hundred punk kids. Hell, he'd been one. "You and Hiro both approved the plan to down Alioth in Sapporo: there are no other good options. There are no survivors that I'm aware of, but with the summon app it's almost certain that _someone _was able to hold off the demons long enough to find others and create a safe area. So I lied when I told the others there wouldn't be any casualties, and you'll lie as well, when Airi Ban asks you if you're really sure there wasn't anyone left here. Because otherwise, you'll be telling her that she contributed to a plan that wiped out every last human in Sapporo."

Tell her there was blood on her hands? His partner's little girl, who used to get up there on that stage in her little white dress at her piano recitals, smiling so happily and so proudly? "You _bastard_…" Ronaldo forced out through gritted teeth.

"If we win, everyone who dies now can come back to life, _with _their families and all those they have already lost to the demons that overran Sapporo. If we make note of as many survivors as we can now, then next time we can try to send teams to retrieve them – they must be strong demon tamers, otherwise they wouldn't have survived this long." Yamato smiled at the thought: those were the kind of people the bastard thought deserved to live. "I'll even send you , if you like. And if you overextend your forces and get yourself killed uselessly without saving anyone…" Then it would be his own damn fault.

"You're already talking about next time?" How could he watch people get killed over and over again, treat all of them like game pieces? Even if he was a monster the other one was nice enough, very concerned with finding food and shelter for the refugees.

Yamato gave him another look that was not quite pure 'you idiot.' Almost as though he was disappointed, as though he'd thought Ronaldo was smarter than this. "Would you prefer I _didn't _make plans to rescue them if this happens again, and just left them to die? Would you prefer I just gave up, and abandoned my family's responsibility to protect this country? To make the hard choices, and bear the shame for those we fail to save: that is the Hotsuin way. Do you know how many of my ancestors have been told to commit seppuku, after their warnings went unheeded, after they didn't manage to pull off enough of a miracle to please their _masters_? Yes: we will do this again, Hiro and I, if that is what it takes. Hiro is determined not to give up until he finds a way to save _everyone_."

"Next time, you'll let me come here on the first day!" And start evacuating then, before there wasn't anything left but huddled pockets of survivors.

"Only if there's some way for you to start remembering, so you can remember what works and what doesn't. Otherwise, you'll just fail and get my men killed uselessly. How do you think Sapporo JPs got wiped out? The commander here, and in the other two cities: they keep ignoring my orders, overextending their forces and failing to protect anyone." The towers would fall and all the civilians would die if JPs got wiped out: Ronaldo had already had that discussion with Makoto. "If you want to be in charge of the refugees, be my guest." Yamato hit Ronaldo hard in the solar plexus, forcing the detective to let him go, and stood over him, watching him with cold eyes as he tried to catch his breath. "_I had to watch Hiro starve to death because of you_. I wanted to see what came of your ideal world, and parts of it, parts of it I liked. Seeing even the lazy and uncaring be motivated to contribute instead of just living off the labor of the strong. Using others until they were used up, as this country has used my clan. But _there is not enough food to feed everyone_. These are cities: food grows in the _country. _The country that is _gone_. Even an idiot like you should know what that means. Accept reality or all the people whose survival you care for so much, all of them will die, and you will _beg _for me to let you kill yourself, make me _swear _not to let Hiro go along with your ideals a second time."

"You… you went along with changing humanity into something you didn't believe in, something contrary to your ideals, just to see what would happen?" What the hell?

"Only because I knew Polaris would break his word and just try to destroy us again." Yamato looked down at him, disgusted. "Don't you believe in your own ideals enough to think I did the right thing, by giving them a chance? Even though Hiro already told me that you were doomed to failure."

"If Hiro starved to death, how many…" How many people had died because Hiro believed in Ronaldo-No, because Yamato talked him into some twisted experiment?!

"…The world was erased as soon as Hiro died. I think his existence was some protection from Polaris, either that or he didn't wish to challenge Hiro when there was no need." Hiro was going to die anyway in that timeline, unlike in the World of Merit where Hiro would have continued to grow stronger and stronger, Yamato was sure of it.

"You're not telling the whole truth."

"Perceptive." Yamato had to give him that, he thought, and grinned. "I think I _do _like you. Not as much as Hiro. Yes; because I forced Hiro to eat he lived longer than most of those poor bastards. All of them went without food for the sake of those in need, or tried to, but ignoring their own needs just made them die in the end, just as JPs going without food would leave the civilians to be slaughtered!" Did Kuriki see _that_ as acceptable? "Don't misunderstand me: there's nothing wrong with you gathering up civilians to fight us for food. The strong _should _fight to survive, especially if there isn't enough for everyone to survive! You were living according to my ideals all along, you and your mentor, fighting the governmental corruption that my clan has failed to change!"

If Makoto was there, Ronaldo would have glanced over at her for what it meant that the chains had come out. Even though she'd never seen them before, Makoto wasn't bothered by them at all and could easily match their movements to the chief's mood, although the huge grin on Yamato's face was still kind of a giveaway that this was the happy, or at least maniacal, kind of twisting and lashing. "Join me, Kuriki, and together we'll figure out how to create a utopia that will work and win Hiro's approval, a place where instead of being pushed down the strong are allowed to use their powers for the good of the world, a place where everyone will contribute and no one will live as a parasite, leaching off the labor of others without contributing!"

"You're insane!" Ronaldo accused him, getting into a ready stance.

Yamato just looked happier, if that was possible. "Am I? We're the same, Kuriki! Is it insane to want a world where no one will die uselessly, an ideal world? Hiro is fighting to find a way to save everyone from Polaris: why stop there? Why not use this opportunity to find a way to continue to save everyone? In your ideal world there would have been no more wars, no more soldiers sacrificed by the politicians in charge without caring what happened to them: in mine humanity would have had unprecedented leaps in technology, medical and everything else, once everyone could bring out their full potential! If you call me evil for not saving everyone, then isn't it far more evil not to seize this chance to save them? To let someone die without even trying, when we could have found a way to save them: it's Hiro who says this is wrong, but he wants to return to the status quo! When if the two of us work together, we could use these time loops to perfect humanity, to bring everyone back to a new world where no one has to suffer!

"Tell me that isn't what you want, Kuriki. Tell me you don't care about all the people in the rest of the world that will go right back to starving to death as soon as they're brought back to life, because of their corrupt governments. When I've seen that it is possible to make those people care, make them do their best even if that best_ is_ pathetic!"

Kuriki snarled, hating to admit that the Hotsuin had a point. If he had a chance to bring about social justice, could he really turn his back on that?

That smirk…! Yamato knew he won the bastard. That must be why he said, "I'll leave you to reflect on that. For now, we have a mission to complete," and turned away, and got out his cell phone as he strode through the hall in the direction both teams had gone, both the one looking for survivors and the one escorting Kama.

Ronaldo finally caught up, in order to hear what the Hotsuin was muttering to himself"…We aren't even at Level One? Why are we not even at Level One? Did I miss something Hiro said..."

Staring, the detective asked, "You were trying to make _friends?" _What the hell?

Yamato gave him an angry, pouting look. "I was tutored in many subjects, but making friends wasn't among what they deemed necessary for me to know in order to serve this country. Hiro is my first friend," Yamato said proudly. "He's tutoring me in those skills, but I am still a beginner. He said to be honest about my feelings, and show my true self. I even managed to compliment you, even while being entirely honest." He scowled down at the phone. "And we're still not even at Level One yet. Making friends can't be that difficult, not if _Daichi _can make level threes in only a week. Aha!" He grinned, finding something in his notes. "Start talking about yourself," he ordered Ronaldo. "I doubt we have many experiences in common, but according to Hiro that should still help us come to understand each other better."

Ronaldo realized that he honestly didn't know where to start, except with the obvious. "You don't have many friends, do you."

"Only Hiro," Yamato said happily. "But Hiro is the one who decided to become my friend," instead of Yamato working to befriend him, so that didn't say anything about Yamato's own befriending skill level, just Hiro's. "…And Alcor can be my friend, if he wants to be. I suppose. I'll have to ask Hiro if that's how it works. Can you just ask to be someone's friend, and then if they say yes, you are now friends?" He frowned: was it really that simple? And yet his fate viewer was displaying that his relationship with Alcor had just gone up a few notches, after feeling the septentrione's sadness that Yamato did not count him as a friend and responding to it.

He looked up at Ronaldo, intending to order the man to become his friend, only to see that the man had buried his face in his hands and was muttering to himself in Portuguese in a tone Yamato recognized as amazed disgust with the revelation that yes, the world could really just be that stupid.

"See?" Yamato said, pleased. "We have so much in common!" According to Hiro that helped make friendships, although Yamato and Hiro didn't have much in common, other than the fact Hiro was strong.

Hiro was a good teacher, and Yamato wasn't going to question his methods. Testing and guided experimentation were good ways to acquire practical knowledge of a subject, but this was rather like being set physics problems during the process of learning the most basic of the mathematics necessary to describe those problems.

Well, he would manage. He was a Hotsuin, after all, and Alcor's modifications had greatly increased the clan's intelligence. He had it on fairly good authority from several shocked tutors, some of whom were never seen again after this, that it was not normally possible for humans to do college-level work at age five.

While originally Yamato had hated Alcor for making the Hotsuin less human and more like the septentriones, decreasing humanity's stupidity while they were remaking the world could only be a good thing, right?

That was when the thought of Hiro becoming part septentrione, becoming able to link to him and Alcor like this occurred to him.

Hiro… he really did affect Yamato like nothing else.


	5. Arms

_I found myself trying to think of what titles Alcor might give the others, as he got to know them the way he got to know Airi a little. Jungo is very very pleased by his._

* * *

"Ingenious," Yamato had to admit.

This was the first time he had performed the ritual to summon the Dragon Stream after integrating with his septentrione aspect. All the other times, including last cycle when he awoke to his memories for the first time afterwards, he had been trying to manipulate that part of him while having as little to do with it as possible.

This time, instead of following a rote ritual he was truly _feeling _what he was doing, finding the connections between what he instinctively sensed and what tradition said was effective.

"So this is why no one was able to wrest control over the Dragon Stream from the Hotsuin Clan." Why they were irreplaceable, corrupted by a foreign god or not. "The aspect you gave us allows us to merge with and manipulate energies in ways humans cannot, but the Dragon Stream is purely natural power that will only heed the commands of a human. Thus, none of the other septentriones could wrest control of it away from us." And no demon or god the Yatagarasu could find could command it even if surely among the millions of spirits that existed there must be _some _that could connect to the network of leylines that made up the Dragon Stream the way the Hotsuin could. "Hiro could command it, but only when it was gathered in one place." Already manifested. It would take Yamato or another of his clan to make it manifest, to direct all that power to link up into the form of the great dragon.

For his part, Alcor was more impressed by the room and the large summoning circle, all the technology the Hotsuin had developed in order to direct the Dragon Stream, to make the most of the power he had given them and use it in ways that were not what he had intended. Humans harnessing the power of the stars and turning it into weapons to attack each other with… He hadn't dreamed anything like that could happen when he gave them fire to keep them warm and other things to help them live and create bonds with each other, but humans were such strange, impossible creatures that constantly altered their own futures.

Being linked to Yamato Hotsuin when the human contemplated plans for the future, which was somehow _all the time _made him dizzy, even if that distress was nothing next to the anguish he had experienced without a companion star.

Thinking about the Shining One brought up thoughts of lunch with the Shining One, and where takoyaki could best be procured on this day, and so much else. But right now, most of Yamato Hotsuin's thoughts were centered on the ritual he and Io Nitta were about to perform.

And the purpose of that ritual.

So Alcor was not physically in the room with Yamato Hotsuin in the present time as humans perceived it, nor was he with the Shining One as he fought to protect Io Nitta.

Instead, he was in the Shining One's room, having been pushed to sit on the bed by the Child of Possibility and attempting to focus on what he had been given by the Maker of Chawanmushi instead of what was about to happen. It was a little difficult to hold the bowl and eat with the Child of Possibility leaning against his side, but she showed no signs of moving.

Her father was leaning against the wall, and the Maker of Chawanmushi had another bowl ready for when Alcor finished this one.

He attempted to taste the stew the human had made him, truly he did, but even though the Akashic Record still foretold that Mizar would win, that his once-Companion Star was in no danger, Alcor knew better. Had memories that contradicted the Record, but were 'more true' than the truth the Record held. After seeing the humans do what should have been impossible, a violation of natural law, and defeat Dubhe, Merak, Phecda, Megrez and Alioth, even before Yamato Hotsuin began to restore his memories Alcor had known that as inconceivable as it was, the humans would win against Mizar as well.

"It really should be ice cream," said the Child of Possibility, hugging his arm again. "Chocolate ice cream, since this is the worst breakup ever. That jerk! Wait, can septentriones get brain freezes?"

"So the purpose of this is to prevent me from thinking?" Perhaps it would have worked on a human. "Yamato Hotsuin thinks that your chawanmushi is very good, although not as good as takoyaki."

The Maker of Chawanmushi smiled, and Alcor ignored Yamato's angry thought: "Don't tell him that, or he'll keep pushing it at me!" When Yamato Hotsuin wanted the Shining One to be the one who brought him food. Yes: food was very important to humans, since it was related to the bonds between them as well as necessary for their survival.

These humans wanted him to survive. Wanted it enough to go to so much trouble, to look after him instead of fighting beside their friends – and those friends had given this their blessing! He thought the Child of Possibility's father must be here to protect his daughter, since Alcor was a septentrione and connected to the head of JPs, when JPs had sought the man's death.

The Child of Possibility, though, and the Maker of Chawanmushi? Mizar's death was inevitable, and yet they had still anticipated that he would be sad, still insisted on being here to remind him that he was not alone.

Humans truly were the most wonderful creatures. Even if they were harmful to reality, even if they did distort Polaris' established order, when they used that power to create impossible bonds, to enable such _kindness? _

Even if Polaris said otherwise, even if Polaris was supposed to be the one who decided what was good and right, the Administrator whose word was Law, it was still impossible to think that they were not worthy of existence. Alcor was a septentrione: he could not defy reality the way humans could. Then because he met them, reality and the word of Polaris were no longer one and the same. Because he met them, he became severed from the others, even Mizar.

He slept for a long time after that – not that the human concept of time had much to do with it – and it was a blessed relief not to think, feel, _mourn_.

The anguish of losing his bond with Mizar: he had experienced that state for eons. This day was truly nothing special, and yet to these humans it was, because he was special to them.

It made him feel very small, like an inferior creature not worthy of the regard of one greater. Almost like Polaris and yet different. So very different.

"I am sorry," he said, looking down at the bowl, and feeling even worse because he was getting tears in it now. "For all the times I must have fought you, because I could not do otherwise. To choose your own purposes the way you do, Child of Possibility: that is a human power. If the Shining One had not given me another purpose, I would have to do my duty as the Sword of Polaris in the same way water must run downhill. I must have forced you to kill me, thinking only of my desire to be ended and not seeing, not wanting to see, that you humans can feel sadness even if something is inevitable. I am sorry."

"You should be sorry!" he heard, and slowly raised his hand to touch the back of his head after Airi punched it. "Geez! I guess if that's the way you were made then you couldn't help it, but…" But that didn't make her stop frowning, didn't make it any better, didn't mean she was going to just accept stuff like that happening to one of her friends. "Aargh! I didn't think anybody could be worse than Jungo!"

Jungo smiled when she said his name, but he still looked at Alcor with that preoccupied expression, thinking thoughts that were slow but determinedly thorough. Humans had a saying about the mills of the gods, that perfection took time but justice would come in time.

Alcor truly did not deserve this much care. He had tried to serve and help them before even before the Shining One made it his new purpose to help humans, but this?

Someone took the chawanmushi out of his shaking hands before he spilled it: Alcor didn't see who, his human body curling in on itself, but a moment later the Child of Possibility shifted to make room as someone else sat down on the bed. Alcor found himself pulled to rest against a body larger than the Child of Possibility's small frame, as warm arms wrapped around him and tucked his head under the human's bearded chin. The man (Dera-Deka, that was what he wanted to be called), rubbed his back, and rocked him a little. The part of Alcor that felt what a human would feel, thanks to his connection to Yamato Hotsuin, found comfort in those things, but it meant even more that the human would try to comfort him.

It made him tremble, as did feeling Yamato Hotsuin's determination to eliminate the cause of his Companion Star's anguish.

How could Polaris think they were lacking, how could Yamato Hotsuin think they were flawed at all, when humans were, they were so impossibly kind?

* * *

Hiro peeked in to see Airi and her dad holding Al Saiduq, while Jungo leaned against the wall watching over them benevolently and Jungo Jr. was curled up on his feet. He realized that next time, he really should go use Yamato's shower first, or one of the ones in the JPs locker room anyway. Hiro wanted to reassure Saiduq, but all he could do was dash past and hope he was relatively unnoticed. He didn't feel right talking to Saiduq just yet, not with Mizar bits all over him.

Joe was in Otome's infirmary with his girlfriend. Daichi was looking after Io while she rested after summoning Lugh. Actually she'd been fine this time since Yamato gave them the code to unseal Lugh early, but Hiro had given them the excuse to be alone and Daichi jumped on it, so that was going well. Hiro also asked Fumi to work on some things for him, especially refining the terminals and seeing if it was possible to send more data back in his cell phone. His cracked skills and the terminal use app both went back, so what if he could store the Ticos' memory files in there, or something? Then they could remember, and tell Alcor to grab Yamato so the septentrione wouldn't spend unnecessary hours on the first day being anguished until Hiro could get to Yamato to unseal him and they could go somewhere to contact Alcor.

For those and various other reasons, Hiro had taken both Hinako and Keita with him to fight Mizar, and their rapid-blow physical techniques had made the things spatter everywhere. A lot. He'd brought Makoto too, because otherwise he knew she was just going to hover over Yamato and Ronaldo and worry about how they were loudly failing to get along.

Hiro actually thought that was going pretty well. Ronaldo berating Yamato and challenging him made Yamato respect him more. When Ronaldo knew what he was talking about anyway, which was fairly often. Detectives had to learn a lot about people.

For Makoto, though, it must feel like bringing her not-boyfriend home and her not-father, or boss and authority figure anyway, didn't get along with him. Not to mention that she did care about Yamato, and this was Yamato's first time trying to make friends. So maybe there was a bit of the nervous mother watching her son on a playdate, too. She kept wanting to run in there and run interference, try to make them be civil and avoid confrontations, but the thing was that wasn't really going to work for those two. Yes, Ronaldo had put his anger aside when he reached out to bring Yamato into the fold all those other times, and that had helped even though it was Yamato's bond with Hiro that made him join them. Going up to Yamato and asking him that still took a lot of guts, especially when Yamato had just announced his intention to murder them all for taking Hiro.

His first and only friend.

Maybe seeing Yamato that angry, when that anger came from heartbreak, was what made Ronaldo see that there was more to Yamato than a cold bastard all the other times? Proof that he did care about other people and was just clumsy and desperate with it. So seeing Yamato's earnest and absolutely graceless attempts to make friends was effective against Ronaldo.

They were already at level three. Hiro had been there when Ronaldo got the message that he had reached Level Two and could now joint skill crack with _Yamato Hotsuin. _It was funny to see him stare and damn near drop his phone.

Not as funny as takoyaki, but it still made Hiro grin, fingers already buried deeply in his hair as he worked the shampoo in and tried to work other stuff out. His hair was kind of a bird's nest, and wearing a hood as often as he did didn't help. He didn't want to miss any Mizar bits that Saiduq might find. Hiro found himself giving both Yamato and Saiduq headpettings a lot, messing with their hair since they were both cute, and Saiduq would sometimes reciprocate, because mutual grooming. Especially important for early humans who had much more hair.

Saiduq really had been watching over humans for a long, long time as they saw things, to know about that. Even though time was funny for the septentriones.

Still, Hiro really didn't want for Saiduq to start feeling better, reaching out again, and then find a bit of Mizar. That would just be really, really wrong.

"Don't do that!" Hiro said automatically when he felt someone appear behind him, well before he registered the chain coiling around his hip. "_How _did you do that?" he asked next, half-turning to see Yamato standing there looking pleased with himself.

"Instead of pulling you to me, the way I did during the ritual when I first awakened to my memories, I pulled myself towards you," Yamato said, slowly looking down Hiro's body and looking more and more like a cat who had gotten into the cream.

Hiro pushed him towards the shower door. "Get your uniform off before it gets totally soaked. Wait, no, Airi's in the other room." Not only was she even younger than Yamato, but would Yamato want to risk the others hearing them over the sound of the shower?

Oh, right. Yamato.

And if being part septentrione gave him some resistance to humanity's instincts being rewritten, the way it had in Ronaldo's world, then the exhibition kink was all Yamato's, not just proving strength… Well, it might still have to do with proving that Hiro was his, and that he was worthy of the strongest. Yamato might have gotten out of the shower, but only because Hiro had already told him to take off his uniform.

So when Yamato was finished stripping, Hiro glanced at Yamato with a slightly conspiratorial smile and reached out to pull him back in. "Come on, you can help me with my hair."

Maybe Hiro would have had better odds of remembering that with the two of them linked, Saiduq felt echoes of everything Yamato felt if Yamato hadn't just stripped in front of him.

* * *

Dinner that evening was much less dramatic than in all the cycles when Ronaldo burst in to denounce Yamato Hotsuin again and everyone ended up declaring whose path they were going to follow. It also involved more takoyaki, although not _only _takoyaki.

Hiro arrived with Yamato on his arm, the Hotsuin wearing a fresh uniform, and Saiduq floating behind them. He wondered why Airi was looking at Yamato like that, but then Airi looked 'grr!' at a lot of people for a lot of reasons, including the people she liked, so he didn't think that much of it. Greeting Joe and his girlfriend, he didn't notice Yamato's triumphant look at the girl or Saiduq's blushing face.

Dera-deka was even better at staying in the shadows than Joe, so no one except Ronaldo noticed the 'that little punk' expression, not under that broad-brimmed hat. Why had Yamato Hotsuin wanted to warn his daughter off this Hiro Kageyama anyway? Airi was too flustered, had summarily banned Yamato from Nagoya too quickly, for the message not to have hit home. She wouldn't have reacted like that if she wasn't interested in Hiro, as much as she denied it.

There was something about him, though. Why the bunny hood, too? Hadn't he been on his way to a test when this started happening? If a rabbit's foot was lucky, except for the rabbit, then maybe the rabbit hood was a lucky charm? Dera-deka doubted any rabbits had been harmed in the production of that outfit.

His daughter had a crush on a boy a few years older than her who fought horrors from beyond the stars while wearing bunny ears.

Well, alright, maybe the Hotsuin did have some justification for taking drastic measures to make it clear that Hiro was _taken._ That still didn't make it right to embarrass poor Saiduq like that.

"I am sorry, Shining One," that boy was saying now. "This should be a celebration of your great victory." Puny humans managing to bring an end to Mizar's replication.

"It's alright." Hiro turned to put a hand on Saiduq's head. "I noticed something before, but I'm sure of it this time. Mizar is the only septentrione that doesn't talk. All the others say something, even if we can't understand it, but Mizar acts more like an animal." Seeing the septentrione's puzzled expression, hand raised to his mouth, Hiro confirmed, "He wasn't like that when you were linked to him?"

Alcor shook his head.

"Then I think," Hiro said, and paused for a moment before continuing, "when you were torn away? Polaris wanted you to be alone. He wanted you to be anguished. If Mizar went with you, you wouldn't have been so sad. If he felt that he needed to make certain that Mizar wouldn't keep thinking that you were right, or to make sure that Mizar wouldn't want to go with you, then doesn't that mean that he might have, if he could? That your Companion Star might have wanted to stay with you?"

"Before Polaris stripped him of his intelligence?" Yamato asked. "Unless he was injured when his Companion Star was torn free. Perhaps because he refused to let go." That last sentence was the only reason Hiro didn't hit him, because the point was to make Alcor feel loved, not make him dwell on the fact this implied that Mizar was hurt because of Alcor. Lobotomized, more like. Yamato frowned when Alcor started crying again. "I've already had to change out of one wet uniform today. Turn into cube form," he ordered the septentrione. "But see if you can make it smaller. I'll even drop some takoyaki into you." That should cheer him up, since every side of Alcor's cube form was in fact the opening of a bottomless pit.

The little cube really was very cute, cute enough even Fumi wanted to feed it, although obviously the reason she gave was that she wanted to see what would happen.


	6. Stars

Yamato Hotsuin looked at all the controls and readouts around him and smirked, so very pleased he had to restrain himself from laughing maniacally, because everything was going according to plan. Today was the day the first of the septentriones would attack, and he had activated the tower barriers without any difficulty. Finally, it had begun! He would change this corrupt country, no, this corrupt world, into one ruled by merit!

He had no knowledge that elsewhere, a seemingly-ordinary civilian high school student was yawning and typing a website into his cell phone, hurrying through the registration process until it got to the point where he could talk to a Tico. "Yes, hi, I know about the death clips, could you do me a favor and look at one of the files in my demon summoning account, please? Alcor made it, and it should be called READ ME," Hiro said as he stretched the arm that wasn't holding the cell phone and wondered if he could get a bunny hoodie for Yamato, because they were definitely good luck. Maybe Alcor too, although hopefully this would give him some good luck. Yeah: from the Tico's reaction that file had carried over along with the rest of the stuff attached to Hiro's account. "Think you can convince your dad to do what he said to do in there?"

The director of JPs' first hint that something was not going according to plan came when he was slammed against the floor, held there by segmented coils of what felt like no earthly metal. "You!" he said, baring his fangs when the heretic appeared, hovering on top of him.

There was a determined look in the septentrione's eyes that seemed to be covering some other emotion, and Yamato wondered if he would die now. No, he knew Alcor's weakness. "Without me, the barriers will fall, and humanity will be destroyed by your master!" Would Alcor really kill him now, when that would doom the race it favored, when that meant all its work and all the Hotsuin clan's labor would have been for nothing?

"Yamato Hotsuin…" Yes: that did make the creature hesitate, its hand hovering less than a centimeter above Yamato's chest. "If your mind is destroyed, the Shining One will defend humanity in your place." That knowledge restored the septentrione's resolve, even though there was still a trace of fear in those eyes, mixed with… Hope? Why would there be hope in the eyes of the Anguished One, even such a trembling hope that brought with it fear those hopes would be dashed?

As Yamato kicked and struggled against the bonds, those pale, thin hands started _touching _him, fiddling with his jacket as the septentrione frowned. What was he trying to do, Yamato wondered.

Unbutton his jacket?! "What are you doing?" he demanded as the first button was undone, followed by a second, even though he had far too much pride to say 'let me go!' when… Well, no, actually the septentrione might be fool enough to release him. Yamato still wasn't going to beg the heretic to let him go.

Alcor bit its lip but did not answer the Hotsuin. At any other time, Yamato would have been pleased by the growing fear in those eyes, but it was obvious that it wasn't Yamato that Alcor was afraid of, not when he was sitting on the Hotsuin doing as he pleased. No: the pale being kept removing Yamato's uniform, the shirt under it, until his hands hovered tentatively over the seal.

Even as his own eyes widened with horrified realization, Yamato could still see the tension in Alcor's body, feel him shake with fear, desire and impossible yearning hope as its hands lowered themselves to finally touch the seal, seemingly oblivious to Yamato's curses and demands that he stop.

Alcor hesitated there for a long moment, before almost convulsively ripping it away.

Yamato wasn't a coward. He still closed his eyes as it came loose. Not because he couldn't bear to see it! Even if it was the proof that he was inhuman, that he was chained to his fate as a Hotsuin. No, he was bracing himself for the onslaught, for whatever the heretic intended to do to him. Whatever it wanted Yamato for. Was this why it had spared him instead of killing him earlier, when there was still time to replace him with Miyako? Had it already brought Miyako to Osaka so that his sister could take over the defense of the towers while Alcor had its way with the Hotsuin traitor?

Held down like this he couldn't fight, could only cast the simplest of spells, ones that would have no effect on the servant of Polaris. What would happen to him now, he thought, and cursed his traitorous body.

In that torrent of emotions, the shame of defeat and all his plans ruined, everything for nothing, it was a long second before he noticed that even though he was still bound, the weight of the septentrione's body had disappeared.

He opened one eye cautiously, only a narrow slit.

Now Alcor was the one wrapped in chains. His eyes were closed the way Yamato's had been as sliver links coiled over and around him, lifting him higher as Yamato watched. He wasn't struggling the way Yamato had. No, he seemed totally limp. One of his hands was even free: Yamato saw a chain encircle that thin wrist, twist itself so that one of Alcor's fingers slid through the center of a link, and then vanish. All the chains were constantly moving: the outer ones appearing, disappearing and reappearing out of thin air. Were they manifesting from some other dimension or appearing the way demons did?

The bell-like chimes of metal on metal as they moved against each other were quiet, yet if Yamato hadn't gone silent he wouldn't have been able to hear that Alcor was murmuring, only see the small movements of those thin lips. Not that Yamato could make any sense out of the inhuman speech of the septentriones, and yet there was something… It must be his inhuman nature that made him feel that he could have understood the gist of it, if he was willing to listen to that part of himself. A prayer, of praise, adoration and thanks, as quiet as though the heretic knew that no prayer of its would be heard. Or as though there was no need for it to be heard?

That made him frown, even though he should be relieved that Alcor had lost interest in him.

The septentrione wasn't even breathing: with no breath behind those mouthings, then why were they on the edge of Yamato's hearing? Only his lips moved, until he shuddered and drew a hitching breath. Until something on its face caught the light, and Yamato scowled when he realized that had to be a tear.

One of the chains wiped, no, flicked it away.

_Good_, thought Yamato, annoyance winning out over fear of the septentrione doing _things _to him, much less guarded curiosity about what was happening now, what the thing thought it was doing. Or what was doing this to the heretic, since it seemed as though Alcor wasn't doing anything but hovering there and letting itself be bound.

Polaris? Was it reclaiming its servant? No, why would the great will protect Yamato? Unless it found his idea of a world of merit worthy?

Yamato smirked, but that quickly changed to a frown when he realized that he was disappointed. He'd wanted to test himself and JPs against the septentriones, wanted to overcome those trials. Prove his merit.

Especially since Alcor was one of those trails. The Sword of Polaris had to be destroyed in order for the door it guarded to open.

To kill him now, though, like this? When that chest finally moved to draw in another breath, when Alcor tilted its head back, neck bared in offering to the chains that coiled around it. Those sounds tumbled from his lips now, almost wrung out of him, and those pale eyes flickered open, looking down at Yamato in an unfocused, dreamy sort of way.

Something in Yamato clenched at the sight of those eyes. Some part of him said _mine_, and he jerked back from that thought not out of rejection but because it brought with it a flood of sounds and images and sensations. So many of them ones that he hadn't experienced before, ones that _made _him react, made his fingers twitch and hair coil and what was this? His mind didn't know how to sort half of these sensations: there was something that felt like _warmth_ but it didn't feel like any warmth he had ever felt, not the hot summer sun nor the heat of a fireside. Something purer, more exalted and beneficent than that, a fire that would not burn unwary fingers, something that made him want to bask in it as mindlessly as Alcor was right now. And yet thinking of that warmth made him think of something wet, like a sauna, that tasted of salt and felt like bare human flesh and made him want to act, made him need to move, unlike the pleasant paralysis of relief that had the septentrione in its grip.

In the confusion he wasn't able to control himself as well as he normally did: he felt his hips move, and his mouth open a little as though to taste… something, and the ache between his legs intensify. There was something he _wanted_, something he was being _made _to want by the flickers in the back of his mind.

Alcor smiled down upon him now, and his lips moved and made something Yamato's hindbrain assembled into _my Companion Star_, and that should have been confusing, should have made him angry, except part of him knew _yes _and _that is who _I _am and who this is_. Another label, another title to assign to this other that was entwined with his family's fate, entwined with him, part of _me and mine and my_self.

Because people were defined through their bonds with others, yes, and he and _the Lifespan Star, the Shield of the Shining One_, were bound such that Yamato was not _Yamato Hotsuin, _not himself or any sort of protector but a poor, lonely, deluded fool without the part of him that was _Alcor_ and the part of him that even now was blessed by the warmth of the Shining One, the thoughts of his _Hiro_.

This, yes. More of it. More bonds, more power. More of that light, more _Hiro_.

The part of him that until now was sealed away reached out, trying to feel the filespace around him, but as of yet his ability to interact with the records was not honed enough that he could identify files containing _perfect takoyaki _and pull them towards himself.

He could _feel _which files were Hiro's, even though it was a little hard to tell which were Hiro and his physical body and where they started to blur into _Hiro and Daichi _or _Hiro and Io_.

Yamato thought, chains and toes curling, of pulling Hiro to him now. Of lying together in the room of barriers, the way they had in the room of summoning. It was a pity Hiro had that test and he wouldn't appreciate it if Daichi and Io died because obviously on the first day they would be helpless without Hiro there to hold their hands through the subway wreck and summoning their first demons. The thought/memory file/potential future file still made him tug Alcor down to lie against him, on top of him, to go with the feeling of _Hiro _and _yes this. _Even if Alcor's thin, bony and almost feverishly warm body felt nothing like having Hiro on top of him.

For a moment part of him (a human part, not a septentrione part) entertained the idea of rolling over on Alcor, being the one to bind _him _to the floor and grinding and doing other things that part wanted, but the way humans wanted specific things to happen and then chose to make those things happen made Alcor dizzy if Yamato forced him to feel those thoughts, and thinking them while focused on Alcor too much, the way Yamato would be if he let his body try to connect to him _that _way, would make the septentrione too jumbled to properly appreciate what Yamato was feeling and the feedback loop would probably take all the fun out of it.

He didn't like the idea of Alcor being sick and helpless while Yamato did what he wanted, not anymore. Not when having Alcor as his Companion Star meant that part of him was _Yamato and Alcor_. So to hurt the septentrione, on top of being far too easy because Alcor was squishy like that, would also be to hurt himself. And Hiro would be annoyed if Yamato backslid and did something embarrassingly stupid like that.

So he reached up to put a hand on Alcor's head, noticing only now that Alcor had freed his arms not long after they connected, and wondered about Companion Stars, and about his own twin. His bond to Miyako was, well, it was pathetic. His bond to _Jungo_ was easily two hundred times stronger. Yet she was still his twin, and like him, and Yamato had learned that friendships and bonds were good. Yamato was still barely a beginner when it came to creating bonds through talking with others, but Alcor wasn't any good at it either. They were lucky linking like this bypassed it.

There was still time for Miyako to reach Osaka JPs before Polaris' deletion started, Yamato calculated. Alternatively, he could have Alcor fetch her.

Thinking of Hiro and how pleased he would be that Yamato thought to save someone's life and was trying to reach out to his family was what decided him, of course. That was what made him think at Alcor to stop making sadhappy little sounds for long enough for Yamato to dig his cell phone out of his pocket and make the call.

* * *

As Makoto escorted him, Daichi and Io into JPs, Hiro looked around for Yamato. Tico B said that it worked and they were doing okay, but since changing anything, much less something that drastic, came with it the risk of something going wrong? Hiro was sure that the Ticos would have let him know if something happened to Alcor, but even with the file to tell them about a hypothetical (to them) future, they would still regard Yamato as the one who hurt and betrayed their creator. Tico A especially would regard Yamato getting lobotomized or something by accident as a bonus.

Where was Yamato? Even on the first repeat Hiro could remember, he'd approached them almost as soon as they entered JPs.

"You knew this would happen?" a familiar-sounding voice demanded.

No, Hiro thought, _this _voice was new, but it sounded familiar, like another voice…

"You _knew _this would happen? The Lifespan Star warned you and you didn't pass that warning on to me?! When I have been trained from the _cradle _to take your place during this Trial if anything happened to you?!"

Hiro came around some of the bronze clockwork to see Yamato angrily gripping Yamato's coat, glaring at him. Yamato, the one being gripped, looked annoyed. "Be grateful I'm telling you at all, Miyako."

"I'm challenging you for your position here and now!" the other-Yamato said with that not-quite-familiar, slightly higher-pitched voice. "Taking the fate of the world so lightly: you aren't worthy to run JPs _or _rule the Hotsuin Clan!"

"Wait," Daichi said, stepping forward as though he wanted to get in the middle of this but unfortunately his survival instincts were in working condition, "Is this really the time to be fighting? When there are demons and, and things out there?"

"This is exactly the time!" the Yamato-with-breasts insisted, turning to face them. "If I hadn't taken the private subway from Osaka to here, I could have missed something of such vital importance… What are these civilians doing here?" she demanded, looking at Daichi with contempt and then Makoto with annoyance. "This is a top-secret area, and we don't have time to waste on weaklings when the septentriones are attacking!"

"Miyako!" Yamato said angrily, demanding her attention. When she turned to face him he told her, "How dare you treat Hiro and those others with such disrespect! You dare challenge me here and now? Allow me to show you why I am the one in control of JPs and our clan!"

Daichi winced and Io's hands went to her mouth to cover a horrified gasp as Yamato's chains appeared, smashing Miyako into the nearest wall. Yamato ignored their reactions, instead saying, "Well? Do you submit?"

Miyako glared at him.

"Do you submit?"

"I admit that your strength is greater than mine, and you have proven your merit," she said through gritted teeth.

Yamato nodded and released her. Hiro was a little surprised that he turned his back on her after that, but, well, it made sense for Yamato. Was this really how he'd been raised, did he really see this as normal and healthy?

From the way Miyako was glaring daggers at him, she was clearly aware that this was fucked up, or was that just envy of Yamato's strength?

The more Hiro found out about Yamato, first the septentrione thing and then this, the more amazed he was not by how weird Yamato was, but by how open he'd been to having a friend. How fast he was learning another way to be.

"Miyako, Makoto, this is Hiro Kageyama. You will both obey his orders as you would mine. Hiro," Yamato said with that fond smile of his, "I'm sorry that bit of discipline interrupted our reunion."

"If she'd won, would you really have let her take over?" Hiro wondered. Really? Even before Yamato started remembering, even when he'd wanted the World of Merit.

"Of course." Yamato looked surprised that Hiro would even ask that. "Not that she would have ruled for long," he said, and smirked now, proud of his strength.

"Why is she here?" Hiro asked, because this was new.

"You know who she is?" Hiro wasn't going to ask who she is or why she looked so much like Yamato?

"Miyako Hotsuin, your twin sister." Who looked an amazing amount like Yamato, but maybe the family's other traits bred true, along with the septentrione aspect? "Some of your people mentioned her." She wasn't admired anywhere near as much as Yamato was, although to be fair she hadn't had as many chances to prove herself as Yamato had. They knew that Yamato was arrogant, but they admired the strength and balls he put where his mouth was. Miyako was equally arrogant but if she really had the right to be that arrogant, to look down on others, then she'd be in the top slot, not Yamato. "It's nice to meet you, Miyako," he told her. "I'm Hiro Kageyama. I'm a devil summoner too."

"I've never heard of you." She looked almost as though that was a personal affront, but then her brother _had_ just told her to obey some nobody. That had to sting, to someone raised with that whole superior-inferior nonsense. Yamato had made it pretty clear with that dismissive gesture towards her and how he practically fawned over Hiro (by Yamato's standards) that he thought Hiro was better than she would ever be, after all.

"Don't worry, I'll fix that," he told her with a slight smile. "I'm looking forward to getting to know Yamato's sister. Is this why you brought her?" he asked Yamato. "You wanted to introduce me to your family?"

It took Yamato a minute to figure that out. "To begin marriage negotiations? I am the head of the Hotsuin Clan." So those negotiations would be with him: what did Miyako have to do with anything? Yamato scowled now. "If I am defeated by Miyako she will win the right to all of my property, including my household." Wives, concubines and Hiros. That made Yamato glance at her out of the corner of his eye, finally taking the threat she posed seriously. Yamato knew that _he _was motivated to fight viciously when possession of Hiro was at stake.

"This is the twenty-first century: wives aren't property anymore." And Yamato was totally the girl in their relationship anyway, not what Hiro would say that out loud. How much Yamato looked like Miyako really rubbed that in, he thought, smiling to himself. "But we need to get Io to the infirmary: I'll say hi to you properly later." And get a straight answer about why Yamato saved his sister this time, not that this was necessarily a bad thing.

"I'll be looking forward to it, Hiro."

Miyako scowled to see her brother looking almost coquettish, willing to wait around for some nobody. Willing to let that nobody just go off with some other nobody, too, instead of staying with Yamato while the other civilian's injury was treated. Why was a civilian even being brought to the JPs infirmary?

"Miyako, I thought I left orders for you to wait for me in Osaka," Yamato told her. "Disregarding my orders… if you hadn't taken the special subway, you would be dead now." In the earthquakes that presaged the erasure. "I have urgent matters to attend to," far more important than her. "Wait for me in the ritual room," he said, and swept off.

The ritual room was soundproofed and warded, making it one of the best places to unseal her, just in case she attacked again.

She would: Yamato was sure of it. She was a Hotsuin and therefore no fool, and Yamato had just demonstrated a degree of control over the other parts of himself that he should _not _have. That sudden expertise could have come from their family's patron, the one who gave them their powers in the first place, but it could also have come from Polaris, their enemy. If anyone suspected that Yamato intended to plead with Polaris instead of 'fighting him uselessly,' it would be Miyako. If she contemplated the theory that Yamato had already sworn himself to Polaris, perhaps trading his service as a septentrione for power, then yes, she would fight him with all she had.

Her far-too-easy capitulation now was a sign that she recognized the significance of the new development. She wouldn't fight him again without some plan for countering a septentrione's powers.

They were the Hotsuin, after all.

Countering the powers of Polaris and his servants were what they were for.

* * *

_Psychology: Twins who are raised apart will end up with very similar likes and dislikes. However, people define themselves through those around them, so twins raised together will grow less alike because they define themselves by how they are like and unlike each other._

_Yamato is very chaos alignment, but since in my headcanon Miyako was basically there to be pitted at him in order to make him stronger, I think she'd end up more law alignment. While Yamato's job is to lead and do his thing, her job in the eyes of those around her is basically to be of service to him, when no one cares about her own goals. _

_I certainly don't think she'd side with Polaris or go that far over to the law side of the alignment, but she's more likely than Yamato to have realized that there is something wrong with how they were raised and the Merit idea - they'd both be rebellious teenagers, but while Yamato is versus the world, she's versus him._


	7. Mirrors

"Good," he said, when he found her waiting there, kneeling elegantly on the bamboo floor. "Remove your seal, I have something to show you." Something wonderful.

His smile clearly didn't decrease her suspicion any, but that was all to the good, he thought, smile growing broader. He didn't want to form bonds with fools and he certainly didn't want to mix his mind with a fool's. He had high hopes that his sister would help compensate for Alcor.

"Remove my seal," she repeated. "Yamato Hotsuin, what have you done? Don't think I didn't realize the nature of the power you used against me earlier: who granted you this new power? The Lifespan Star or Amatsu-Mikaboshi?" Alcor or Polaris, their patron or humanity's enemy?

Straightforward: Yamato liked that. As expected of his twin. "The Shining One," he told her, amused to see her suspicion turn to certainty when he didn't immediately deny contact with Polaris. "Hiro. Hiro is the one who motivated me to remember, who made this part of myself," he waved an arm, the chains moving with it, appearing to wrap around that human limb, "refuse to remain suppressed." Refuse to be tamely sealed, leaving Yamato to continue to think he could court Polaris' favor. "It is my bond with him that gave me the power to remain myself even after being bound to an inhuman mind, that of our clan's patron god."

He could ask Alcor to appear now, but he was currently sitting sandwiched between Hiro and Io in a cafeteria booth as they ate dinner with Daichi, Joe and Makoto. It made Alcor happy to be treated like an ordinary human, so Yamato would leave him to it. It was also an opportunity to study their interactions through his link to Alcor: Yamato saw it as part of his training in dealing with other humans as friends.

In addition to that, Miyako would demand proof that the pale, poofy man really was their clan's patron god. Yamato knew he hadn't reacted well to that. All their sacrifice and suffering because of this… frilly person?

"If you want to," ever, "be my equal, if you want to be capable of taking my place," he said, laying out the challenge because this was the bottom line, "then you must master this power as I have mastered it. It's this power that lets me remember the other times Polaris tried to destroy our world, all the times we faced him and all the times he broke his word to us, to leave us alone after we overcame his challenge!"

Well, to be totally accurate, they all blurred together for Yamato. He was certain there were a handful of times before Hiro started to remember that Hiro chose the world of merit, but only in the most recent world like that had Hiro become his lover before Polaris returned and wiped them out. It wasn't anger at the loss of his world of merit that made Yamato refuse to forget, it was having Hiro's favor and then losing it. The determination to get Hiro back and not lose him again, to create their ideal world together and have it stay that way so they could enjoy the fruits of their labors.

"Hiro has fought beside me countless times," he told her. "I thought you deserved this chance to fight beside me, to fight the enemy we Hotsuin have trained and built and waited for all these centuries. Will you prove me wrong? Did I waste my time, should I have left you to die with the civilians? Remove your seal, accept your power as a Hotsuin! We should never have cowered in fear!" They should admire us for our strength and superiority, he might have said before. Before he met Hiro, before he realized that yes, civilians had wisdom, and the ability to create bonds with others was a true form of power. One the Hotsuin were deficient in. They might be born geniuses in any other branch of knowledge one cared to name, but the simple fact they thought more like Alcor's kind, like the beings that maintained all knowledge, meant they thought less like humans, meant creating these bonds would be harder for them.

When part of them was wired for bonds that were far easier, far simpler, it was hard to grasp the complexity Hiro had mastered… How long ago? How many timelines had it really taken him, to make it look so simple? The power Hiro wielded was the accumulated power of bonds. He _had _that strength because he cared, because he had merit. He had the power to rule this world and Yamato because he had earned it countless times over. That, that was true merit: Ronaldo had a point. There clearly was some nobility in caring for others: it was not something to take for granted or dismiss as Yamato had before.

"I now have someone who accepts me, even knowing everything that I am. Two," Yamato corrected himself, remembering Alcor. "The strength that comes from fighting for someone precious like that: be grateful I called you here instead of leaving you to be erased with our estate, be grateful I'm giving you a chance to wield that power for yourself!" He was, he realized. Because if she connected to him, then she would feel his emotions towards Hiro, and also Alcor's. Once she released her seal and felt Hiro's light?

They would have to reach some sort of compromise. About Hiro. That was what humans, friends, siblings did, apparently. He almost wanted to share Hiro, wanted to show off how wonderful Hiro was. Wanted others to have a taste of Hiro, and envy Yamato that he could have his fill!

…Well, he _could._ As soon as Polaris was dealt with and these cycles were finished.

"Take off your seal," he told her. "Let me show you what I have learned." Because wasn't that her role, for now? To carry on the Hotsuin traditions, to teach their knowledge to the next generation if he died in battle? He realized then that he wanted her to take off her seal willingly. Wanted her to trust him, not just be forced to obey him.

She glared at him, not baring her fangs but compressing her lips over them to keep them hidden. She still unbuttoned her coat, and finally reached under her shirt to remove the seal.

What sprang into being around her weren't mobius strip-shaped chain links, like his, but a number of flat plates. Trying to count the sides of them made his eyes water, and was it really that all of them were facing towards him even though they circled her, or did it just seem that way? Not showing him their backs, or their other sides, just facing him fiercely. That made him smile, that was correct for a Hotsuin. His approving smile made them speed up their rotation around her, but Yamato was oblivious to her shame or rising anger.

"I'll show you how to connect," he told her, "and how to see the state of the battle so far, in my mind." He would even show her how to feel Hiro, he thought, because surely that would make her like him and cement this bond. Sharing things was a very important activity for these purposes, and Hiro was the best thing. Smiling with delight now, he let his chains appear around her, let them wrap around and flow through the centers of her many-sided panes.

Yamato was shocked and dismayed by what he found there.

He thought his sister wanted to fight and overthrow him because she wanted to be the stronger, she wanted to be the one worthy to rule JPs. He thought she was fighting for her own pride, her own self.

It made him step back, forced him back as though he'd been physically struck, to find that she hated him.

Hating someone because they were stronger, wanting to push them down and make them weak: that was a sign someone was weak, that was something despicable. For his own sister, his own twin, to think that way?

…was he the reason she thought this way? Had he made her weak like this somehow? Not noticing her pain at being constantly told that she wasn't good enough, wasn't worthy, not compared to Yamato. Otherwise she would have won.

Always second best, and the face reflected in the shifting many-sided mirrors of corroded bronze, green and gold and blood, was his and hers and a monster's. Because the Hotsuin were monsters, had been corrupted by a foreign god: they were tolerated because they were necessary monsters for the sake of the country's defense, and she? She wasn't necessary. She was the spare.

What she wanted wasn't important. Only if she defeated him, only if she took over JPs and the clan, would what she wanted have any effect on what happened. She _wanted _that. She was powerless, and she wanted Yamato to know what it was like to be the powerless one. Wanted him to be seen as only a tool to ensure _Miyako's _improvement. Wanted_ him_ to be forced to dress like_ her_.

Yamato didn't understand. He wasn't the one who said she couldn't have the nice things if she wanted them: if they were the ones who were imposing these rules on her, then why hadn't she fought them instead of all that anger turning on him? But apparently there was more to it than that, and human interpersonal matters were so hard for him to understand.

Hiro would know, he thought. Yes, Hiro would, and feeling his light would surely placate her, yes? She would have to hate him less if he let her have part of something as wonderful as Hiro.

It was a little surprising for Hiro to suddenly be yanked through that other space again, but he knew the feel of Yamato's chains by now, so he might have been startled but he didn't panic or anything. Yamato clinging to Hiro's back as soon as he appeared as though Yamato was suddenly Alcor or something was new, though. He actually had to reach back and feel the different texture of that hair just to be sure that the face pressed against his neck wasn't Alcor's, even though Yamato's body was cooler and he was less bony.

Alcor's hair was, well, fluffy. Yamato's was thick and coarse, able to stand up in shapes on its own without gel. So it was easy to tell them apart that way.

That settled, Hiro wondered what he was here for, exactly. The usual answer was probably ruled out by the way Miyako was here and Yamato wasn't trying to remove Hiro's jacket. "Uh, hey?" he said, waving hi to Miyako. "Cool mirrors."

Her lips moved, but no sounds came out. "Can't find words right now?" Hiro wondered. "Well, I guess if you're not used to…" Reflex made him duck as one of those mirrors came flying at his head: his leg got tangled with Yamato's and he fell.

That made Yamato start doing the chain thing, pushing himself up with those other limbs, coiling around Hiro protectively and quickly subduing Miyako, who had nowhere near as many mirrors as Yamato did chains. "Your quarrel is with me, not with Hiro!" What kind of fool did his sister have to be to attack Hiro, even if she clearly must have been counting on him to dodge a simple attack like that? Even so, the disrespect of it! How could his own twin be such a fool as to reject Hiro's sympathy and clear intent to aid her?

Hiro tugged sharply on Yamato's jacket, getting to his feet himself. "Let her up. No wonder she's in a bad mood."

As he said this, Hiro realized that, "I don't know her at all." He wouldn't have encountered her in any of the resets, right? Thinking of that actually made him a little excited. Not just because he must have grown to like making 'new' friends over the reset and this was someone who would really be _new_, but he wanted to know if he really could get along with her first try. He hadn't lost his skills for dealing with people who weren't already his BFFs subconsciously, right?

Yeah, he thought, smiling to himself. Like that would happen.

Hiro ignored the part of himself that was thinking, 'Yay, fresh meat!'

Miyako was glaring at Yamato over his shoulder, but before Hiro could decide what to say next she froze, like a hunter detecting a sign of prey. She turned her head, eyes focusing on Hiro.

Yamato snarled, outraged. "Don't try to take all the light!" Not only was this the first day and Alcor was still wounded, how dare she try to pry Yamato's chains loose from _his _Hiro, even when he was leaving plenty of light for her to taste?

At that point, things degenerated into some sort of multidimensional slap fight, and Hiro could only stand there and watch the parts of it that he could see, kind of amazed.

"Shining One?" Alcor appeared next to Hiro, blinking at him pitifully. Why had he been shoved away from the light? Could he please have some more?

"Yamato and his sister are fighting." Hiro didn't say 'fighting over me' because it was pretty clear there was more to it than that, and Miyako had gotten just as messed up as Yamato was. "I don't think she can keep you off me if you don't let her push you." Even though Hiro couldn't count them because trying made his brain hurt, he was pretty sure Miyako had a lot fewer mirrors than Yamato had chains, that she was a lot weaker. If she had an inferiority complex, then Yamato leveling up so much because of the repeats wouldn't help, huh. From the snarl on her face, she was finally starting to realize that instead of being a little stronger than her, Yamato had her outclassed.

Alcor tugged on one of Hiro's bunny ears, looking over his shoulder at the combatants. "Shining One… Is this because of the fate I inflicted on the Hotsuin Clan?"

"No, I think it's because the people who raised Yamato and Miyako were pretty messed up." Yamato's only memories of his mother were from when he was a little kid, and she had clearly wanted him to be able to fit in and make friends. Trying to raise Yamato to think of himself only as a tool for Japan's defense: these Yatagarasu guys had a lot to answer for.

Suddenly Miyako froze, staring at Yamato's face. The sounds of bells and ripping tinfoil stopped, and Hiro heard what had caught Miyako's attention.

"Aniki… Are you _crying_?" Miyako was utterly shocked.

"I am not crying!" Yamato insisted.

Hiro raised a hand. "Yamato." Who was the expert here. "You were crying." Hiro had scrambled to get out of the line of fire while unearthly metal was banging around everywhere, but now he went to Yamato's side. "What's hurting?"

Yamato looked at him, defiant and pitiful, clearly only even considering answering because it was Hiro who asked. "I didn't know she hated me," he said quietly. "Even though there is so little that is Yamato-and-Miyako, it's still making me hate myself. No, because of how little there is." He wasn't hating himself because the two of them were blurring around the edges and it was making him feel Miyako's hatred as his own: the realization of how little they shared was part of what was causing him to ache inside and hate, blame, himself. The way Miyako clearly did.

Miyako's jaw dropped. Yamato was confessing something like that to another human being? Yamato had feelings like that in the first place? Since when? She'd never seen her brother cry, not even when they got the news about Mother.

Someone _dared _hug her brother, and Yamato was leaning into it instead of either pushing him away or standing there stiffly and glaring?

"It's not going to be easy," Hiro told him apologetically, consolingly. "You're pretty messed up, Yamato, so she probably is too." This was Yamato: he'd prefer Hiro's honest assessment to platitudes. "What did you think was going to happen?"

"That being able to share our thoughts would allow us to bond, and shouldn't that have resolved any differences between us?"

Hiro pulled back to arms' length to look skeptically at Yamato.

What? "I also intended to share you with her," Yamato said defensively, in case that was where Hiro thought he'd gone wrong. Even Yamato knew enough about people to know that trying to keep someone away from Hiro's light would end in a battle.

"That's very nice of you, _but_," Hiro said, and pointed at Alcor, who hovered nervously in the corner of the room. "Thinking that will resolve all differences? Really? You already worked out your issues with Alcor, remember? Tons of times. It wasn't linking to him that did it. It _helps _you understand him, but if just being linked meant people wouldn't be jerks to each other, or even that they wouldn't disagree, none of this would have happened to Alcor. Or be happening to us, for that matter." Either the others would all have sided with Alcor or Alcor would have yielded to the will of the majority and they'd be screwed. Without Alcor, the Hotsuin Clan wouldn't have had the knowledge of the dragon stream to create the tower shields.

"Not to mention that just because you have a bond with someone doesn't mean you won't get into fights. You have to work not just to create bonds, but to maintain them." Hiro smiled. "Ah, so that's what this is about. You wanted your sister to be your friend." Yamato wanting more friends was progress. "But thinking that it's going to be easy to be friends with someone… That's kind of insulting their feelings. I know you know you wouldn't let anyone close unless you liked them and they were worthy, right? Even I had to earn your friendship. Miyako isn't going to be easier than Ronaldo: she might even be harder. Because it looks like you both got messed up, so you both have baggage to overcome."

While Ronaldo was just a nice guy: that was the real reason he'd gotten so angry with JPs killing his mentor and not sharing the food, because he was a good guy who had standards and didn't see what was so hard about acting like a decent person. Once it was clear that Yamato was a good kid who was trying, even though he was messed up, Ronaldo's empathy and sense of fairness made him want to help Yamato. Miyako, though? It was pretty obvious she didn't have people skills either, forget those of someone who was good enough with people to track down criminals for a living and rally an army when civilization broke down.

There was a flicker of calculation in grey eyes – despite his real distress Yamato was still a teenager, and a scarily intelligent one. Possibly Hiro shouldn't have mentioned the category of 'comfort sex' when he gave Yamato that rundown on types of sex and PDA and when and where they were appropriate in the normal world as opposed to the World of Merit, where it had been perfectly fine for Hiro to have his way with Yamato in the throne room after overthrowing him. Normally acting pathetic in order to win was beneath Yamato's dignity, but, well, sex.

Hiro reminded himself that he needed to be strong, really, and a World of Merit or any other attempt at utopia was _not _the answer. Really.

It was also really wrong to just think of Miyako as 'female Yamato.' She had to be sick of that. The Hotsuin weren't things, to be used for their power or anything else. So Hiro firmly suppressed the part of himself that was thinking things like, 'Score, catfight!' and how Yamato plus Yamato-with-breasts was just awesome, since Hiro was bi, not only interested in men. To be honest, making the world a place where people could do what they wanted with who they wanted and no one cared was a nice thought, in theory, _as long as it was consensual. _That right there was one of the problems with the World of Merit, although with everyone thinking differently what people wanted in that world had gotten a little… strange. Rewriting humanity into the way Hiro wanted them to be without asking them first, though? Not okay. Not at all.

Anyway, he needed to learn who Miyako was, and how to become her friend for her own sake, not just as an extension of Yamato.

He couldn't help remembering what Daichi said about hot alien twins, though.


	8. Smiles

It was _creepy _to see Yamato smiling all the time when the smile was only half smirk.

"Obviously Japan must be restored first, since the Hotsuin clan has a duty to protect that nation," he was saying, although to all appearances the Lifespan Star was too covered in purple huggy things to pay any attention to what her brother was saying as he paced on the beach. "That will discharge my final duty to it. Can you restore all of the islands at once, or would that be a strain."

Pale eyes blinked, or at least the one visible eye did. "It is not the islands that are difficult, Yamato Hotsuin, but the people."

"Obviously," her brother said testily. "Will it be easier to restore the countries where everyone died at the same time?"

They heard a whistle. "Hey, breakfast is ready!" Hiro's annoying friend Daichi called.

"Perhaps we should do one more reboot in order to ensure that Hiro has enough of the will of the species for you to draw on," Yamato muttered as they walked up the beach.

"Doubting his competence, brother?" Miyako asked, eyebrows arching. "He says that there is no need for additional reboots, and you were the one who confirmed that the Lifespan Star will be able to gradually restore the world." Even though what Yamato had been _trying _to prove was that Alcor could alter a preexisting world, say to impose that ridiculously blind and callous Merit System of his.

"Are you two fighting again?" Io sighed.

"She's breathing," Airi said, "so of course they're fighting. Hey! If you have enough energy to pick on your brother, then you can go help my dad gather more firewood!" It was pretty clear that gathering firewood was for people who were in the doghouse, since everyone else was spread out on the beach eating, except for Jungo who was still sitting on an outcropping of volcanic rock by the shore, fishing with a serious expression on his face and a cat next to him eating the fish he had already caught.

Yamato was already sitting down next to Hiro, who spared her one of his smiles when he saw her looking in their direction.

"Over here," Daichi said to Alcor, pulling him in Io's direction. "We found some more coconuts: mind asking Mizar to drill holes in them for us again?"

"Why should I gather firewood when there is a perfectly good kitchen inside the compound?" the Lifespan Star had recreated the Hotsuin Clan compound on this island, since as their patron he was familiar with it and its defenses. Hiro had already accepted her brother's invitation to stay in his building, that of the head of the clan. Her brother clearly had designs on Io as well, although Miyako didn't mind that. Obviously Yamato should marry Io, in order to have children to inherit both their power. Marry Io and leave Hiro to Miyako, who was capable of bearing his children.

Her brother's attempts to become friends for her were infuriating, after how he had treated her for years, but she knew she should at least try to be civil if she wanted Hiro to continue to associate with her. Blood might allegedly be thicker than water, but who wouldn't value power like that more than blood? His aura was like thick, sweet beaten honey: her favorite treat, one she might be allowed to indulge in twice a year.

Hiro would need to remain with the Hotsuin Clan and the Lifespan Star until they were done restoring the world, and once the Yatagarasu was restored, she was sure they would try to discourage Yamato from marrying a man and fathering illegitimate children to inherit the title, so she had a chance…

Something bonked against her leg, and she looked down to see one of the purple things hitting her leg with a coconut… no, trying to get her attention so she would take the coconut. "Thank you," she said, since she had been raised to be polite to gods no matter how small they were, even if Mizar was still incapable of speech.

Four-five of them were clustered on Hiro's lap, along with the main body, and two more on his head while Hiro fed all of them pieces of a baked yam. The real reason they were ending the repeats now was that Alcor had been so distraught at what the Administrator did to Mizar that Hiro hadn't wanted Alcor to spend most of all the future reboots knowing that Mizar was suffering like that. Since right now the Scabbard of Alcor was soaking up easily nine-tenths of Hiro's light he should recover before too much longer, but the resets would have restored the damage, meaning that Mizar would never have had time to recover before the next reset started.

It wasn't right for her to resent the poor little thing: he needed it more than she did, even if Hiro's light was sweet, sweet ambrosia.

Still, she thought as she picked it up, she wished she had the strength to best Yamato, to be the one to sit next to Hiro and kiss him, sip that light from his lips. Even if Ronaldo did forcefully push a plate of food into his hands and scold him for trying to make out with someone when other people were trying to eat.

Even a mere sliver of that light striking her mirrors… Almost absently she put the little Mizar on top of one of her mirrors, turning away because it was better to leave, to gather wood and train than have to watch powerlessly. It was immature of her to hate her brother, even if the Tico A was right and he was a goof, not realizing how unhappy she was all these years – so much for his vaulted intelligen-

Her thoughts trailed off into static.

"Miyako?" Of course Hiro was the one to ask if something was wrong, although he'd noticed it because of how Yamato and Alcor had simultaneously turned to look at her. Since Yamato was standing up he stood up too, in case he could help.

"She linked to Mizar, and since she has only a weak bond with you-"

Alcor was a little surprised when all of the Mizars migrated to his back, and even more so when he was suddenly embraced by the other Hotsuin. "My Companion Star," she breathed against his lips. "My husband…"

Mizar? Had linking to the Hotsuin given his Companion Star a voice?

Alcor knew that he should refrain from crying, since it made the Shining One's friends worried for him, but he couldn't help it as he nuzzled her cheek, his old bonds to Mizar settling back into place now that Mizar had a borrowed mind to think with, even if humans found it difficult to cuddle in six dimensions.

"I couldn't find you… You were the Overlooked One, but never by me… A part of myself was gone and I felt your light in this world, and I wanted to devour all of it, piece by piece, until I found the piece that was you…" that cultured voice whimpered now, Miyako's legs wrapped around Alcor like another pair of tentacles so she was suspended above the ground, hanging from him.

None of the others but Yamato could understand what she was saying, and he looked torn between rescuing his sister and letting Alcor and Mizar have their reunion. Eventually he decided that Miyako would feel insulted if he thought she was weak enough to need his assistance, and channeling gods was a very respectable thing to do, even channeling gods who seemingly just wanted to cuddle.

He should probably keep anyone from mentioning how adorable it was to her later, though.

Also, as a tactical matter, since Miyako's mind was currently overwhelmed by the force of Mizar's love and joy, this might be the best time to link to her and let her see that he also did love her. With Alcor and Mizar to serve as a shining example, perhaps she would be willing to acknowledge that the two of them truly should be Twin Stars?

Then he would have a Hiro, a friend _and _a sister.

It wasn't a world of merit, but maybe Hiro was right, that this world could be a truly great place after all.


End file.
